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Category: Author

David Stuart Davies looks at The Mysterious Island

Five prisoners of war from the American Civil War escape in an observation balloon and crash-land on an unknown volcanic island. David Stuart Davies takes up the story of The Mysterious Island. The greatest of all science fiction writers in the nineteenth century was Jules Verne (1828 – 1905). In fact, he was regarded as… Read More

Andrew Lang and his magical tales

David Stuart Davies looks at three collections by a master storyteller. Here are three books which have the power to transport you well away from a world in turmoil to the realm of fairy tales, legendary adventures and charming folklore. I refer to the Tales of Troy and Greece, Tales of King Arthur, and Tales… Read More

Tender is the Night

David Stuart Davies looks at the fourth and final complete novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. ‘I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside of me, there’ll always be the person I am tonight’. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life was as exotic, dramatic and eventually as tragic… Read More

Mia Forbes takes up the story of Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit

‘This is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination. Charles Dickens’ visit to America in 1842 did not go well, and his disillusionment showed in his next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit. Mia Forbes takes up the story. “The curse of our house”, said the old man, looking kindly… Read More

The Nobel Prize in Literature

As the Committee of the Swedish Academy put the Nobel Prizes for 2021 behind them and begin to consider the nominations for 2022, Sally Minogue looks at some of the past winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Adam Bede

Published in 1859, ‘Adam Bede’ was the first novel by Mary Ann Evans, writing under her pen name George Eliot. David Stuart Davies takes up the story.

Sally Minogue looks at Mrs Dalloway

BBC Radio 4 this week begins a 10-part reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Sally Minogue looks at the Modernist context as Woolf conceived and wrote her fourth novel.