Summarizes the plots of Hawthorne's most influential novels and includes critical essays on aspects of each novel.

Excerpt: "...he is hardly even a caricaturist; that he is something very like a realist. Those comic monstrosities which the critics found incredible will be found to be the immense majority of the citizens of this country. We shall find that Sweedlepipe cuts our hair and Pumblechook sells our cereals; that Sam Weller blacks our boots and Tony Weller drives our omnibus. For the exaggerated notion of the exaggerations of Dickens (as was admirably pointed...

An aunt imparts wisdom to her teenage niece, inspired by the works of Jane Austen, in this novel from the Man Booker Prize–nominated author.
 
Alice is an aspiring novelist with green hair and zero interest in reading Jane Austen for her college English class. However, her Aunt Fay, a novelist herself, isn’t about to let Alice stick her nose up at Austen or other enduring authors.
 
“You find...

This book presents biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on Mark Twain's best-known short stories, including "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," "Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut," and others.

Bloom's Major Short Story Writers are easy-to-follow guides to the most popular short story writers whose works are taught in high schools, colleges, and universities today. Each book is edited by the preeminent literary critic of our time, Harold Bloom, and contains a variety of critical views on the world's greatest short stories. These volumes are the perfect introduction to critical study of these important works by writers such as Mark Twain,...

In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in the clear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwell discusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhood schooling, the Spanish Civil War, Henry Miller, British imperialism, and the profession of writing.