BLOG POSTS

“On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.” The Count of Monte Cristo begins and ends with voyages. The opening line heralds the arrival of the hero, the young sailor Edmond Dantès, in his native Marseilles after a voyage across… Read More

Denise Hanrahan-Wells looks at Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic Children’s Story I first came across A Little Princess through the 1973 BBC adaptation and was immediately captivated by it. I am not sure exactly what drew me in but having recently returned to the original novel I realise I was a similar age to the gently… Read More

David Stuart Davies writes on our collection of the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Here we have a volume, sometimes translated as Memoirs from Underground (1864) which is a comprehensive collection of the short fiction by the great Russian writer Fydor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881). Its importance derives from the fact that more than the… Read More

David Stuart Davies looks at what is widely considered to be Dostoevsky’s finest novel ‘Though Crime and Punishment is sometimes cited as the first psychological thriller, its scope reaches far beyond Raskolnikov’s inner turmoil. From dark taverns, dilapidated apartments and claustrophobic police stations, the underbelly of 19th-century St Petersburg is brought to life by Dostoevsky’s… Read More

David Stuart Davies looks at Virginia Woolf’s first novel, plus her essay that is considered as a key work of feminist literary criticism  Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) holds a very special position in the pantheon of English Literature. She was perhaps the most prominent feminist writer of the 20th Century. Her work, ideas and… Read More

‘Strange reports had gone forth about me; and there were those who whispered that I had given my soul to the Evil One…’ ‘Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and yet is nowhere nearly as well known. If her name does spark any recognition, it is usually in connection… Read More

In Pride month, Sally Minogue reminds us of a time when writers couldn’t easily be out and proud. A couple of weeks ago I was wandering through the cool paths of the Cimitero Acattolico – the Protestant Cemetery – in Rome, with fellow-blogger and friend Stefania Ciocia as my companion and guide. It was our… Read More

‘Money, money, money, and what money can make of life’ Our Mutual Friend, first published in 1864, was Charles Dickens’ last completed novel. This late work gives one of the author’s richest and most comprehensive accounts of modern society, as well as perhaps his bleakest. It is true to say that this is one of… Read More

‘Life is an oasis which is submerged in the swirling waves of sorrows and agonies’. Thomas Hardy’s novels of rural life in his fictional county of Wessex (standing in for Hardy’s own county of Dorset) are filled with dark moralising and pessimistic philosophy, epitomized by the author’s assertion in the final lines of The Mayor… Read More