Barnes Noble: 2826 books

This 1915 edition of a collection of critical writings by the heralded English writer includes “The Journal of Sir Walter Scott,” “Beaumont and Fletcher,” “Social Verse,” “Wilkie Collins,” “Whitmania,” “Tennyson or Darwin?”, Eight articles on “The Posthumous Works of Victor...

Carl Van Vechten was not only America’s first dance critic, but the first to champion American music and consider ragtime and jazz serious genres. This 1916 collection of writings heralded the Jazz Age with such irreverent but informed assessments as “Music for the Movies,” “Spain and Music,” “Shall We Realize Wagner’s Ideals?” and “The Bridge Burners.”

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.   "Discretion is not the better part of biography," Strachey warns us, and it is with this motto that he paints his portraits of Cardinal Manning, Dr. Arnold, Florence Nightingale, and General Gordon....

This 1912 publication is a thoughtful overview of French literature that was aimed at illuminating the French classics for English readers. Beginning with the Middle Ages and covering the time periods through the end of the nineteenth-century, Strachey discusses authors Froissart, Moliére, and Hardy,...

This 1915 volume explores the history of both the French and English salons and their influence upon literature. The author states that writers “could discover in the conversations of the salons what a nation, always radical at heart, had made of the theories of free thought, liberty, and equality.”...

An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit is the most extensive work on the nineteenth century comic genre. It was initially presented as Meredith’s first and only public lecture in London in 1877, and published separately as a book in 1897.  In it, Meredith defines comedy as a “humour...

In this 1897 collection the Victorian freethinker applies the tests of his earlier compilation of essays in a new way. Includes the essays “The Theory and Practice of Criticism,” “Poe,” “Coleridge,” “Shelley and Poetry,” “The Art of Keats,” “The Art of Burns,” “Stevenson on Burns,” and “Clough.”

One of James’s forays into the supernatural, The Sense of the Past revolves around Ralph Pendrel, a young American who meets one of his ancestors and namesake from the 18th century in an otherworldly encounter. He ultimately travels back in time to trade places with his predecessor. James began work...

In this haunting volume of three novella-length stories, Moore explores three characters, each drawn into a life of celibacy. The book features Mildred Lawson, the pretty but selfish woman who is plagued by the worry that her husband married her for money alone; John Norton, a would-be monk who finds...

This 1892 play is set in 1820 in Tunbridge Wells, all the action occurring over the span of just ten hours. The prologue by Henley reads (in part)  "A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time; a hint of what it might have held sublime; a dream, an idyll, call it what you will, of man still Man, and woman—Woman still!"

Turgenev’s first novel (1857) established some of the author’s favorite themes, including the fate of the intellectual but ineffective “superfluous man,” and the self-conscious woman now known to literature as “the Turgenev maid.” This intense love story reflects Russian society in the wake of the Crimean War, as well as the author’s life. English translation by Constance Garnett.

On the eve of the Crimean War, young Elena Nikolayevna finds herself courted by free-spirited sculptor Pavel Shubin and straight-laced student Andrei Bersyenev. The latter introduces her to Bulgarian student revolutionary Dmitri Insarov, whom she falls in love with and secretly marries. War and fate have further plans for Elena in this 1860 novel.

This 1890 essay explains how romances affect their readers. Written in clear, judicious prose, chapters include “The Office of Fiction in Literature,” “The Scientific Value of Fiction,” “The Moral Value of Fiction,” and “The Criticism of a Work of Fiction.”

Published in 1840, and set during the Napoleonic wars, Shirley details social upheavals resulting from the industrial revolution.  Robert Moore has modernized his mill, only to nearly bankrupt himself and make enemies of his workers.  Desperate to recoup his fortunes, he sets his sights on the rich heiress Shirley Keeldar, though his heart belongs to another.