Word Wise: 97 books

In this volume we venture to the East. To met a writer who speaks a common language of love and mysticism which continues to convey valuable insights into universal themes in contemporary society. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) who was a gifted Bengali Renaissance man, distinguishing himself as a philosopher,...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21st, 1772 in Ottery St Mary, Devon, England. As a young child he was an early and devoted reader having no time for play or sports. After his father died in 1781, 8-year-old Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital, a charity school founded in the 16th century...

Saki is the penname of the British writer Hector Hugh Munro. In The Unbearable Bassington, he tells the story of the whimsical Francesca Bassington, an upper middle class woman whose main concerns in life are her modest possessions and the career and marriage of her only son, Comus. The latter is portrayed...

As a columnist with the famous Chicago Tribune, he achieved considerable success, mainly among baseball fans who liked his quips and his satirical and funny commentaries. In 1916 Lardner collected some of his works in a book that he entitled You Know Me Al. The publication was an astounding success...

In this volume we examine the poetry of Katherine Mansfield. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand the middle child of five. A gifted Cello, at one point she thought she might take it up professionally the young Katherines first writings were published in...

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on January 19th 1809 and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family his education was cut short by lack of money and he went to the military academy, West Point where he failed to become an officer. His early literary works were poetic...

Across the years there have been many great writers of detective fiction. Many spring to mind: Arthur Conan Doyle for example. But few would recognise the the name Grace Isabel Colbron. She's worth delving into. Born in 1869 Grace Isabel Colbron wrote several detective 'whodunits'. Writing detective...

The Evil Genius is Wilkie Collinss novel about marital complications, adultery, divorce and child-custody. Herbert Linley engages in an illicit romantic relationship with his daughters governess, Sydney Westerfield. Sydney leaves the house after being caught by Herberts mother-in-law, yet she returns...

HH Munro, better known by his pen name of Saki has scarcely been out of print since he was first published It has to be admitted that a taste for Saki is something of an addiction. And, like all addictions, once acquired, it is hard to shake off. In the years since his tragically early death in the trenches...

Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid (1883) is a long short story by Thomas Hardy. It follows the life of Margery, a lower-class woman who is young, delicate and beautiful. She is engaged to James Hayward who works in a kiln. When one day Margery goes out to visit her grandmothers house, she encounters...

Herman Melvilles Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War takes the form of seventy-two narrative poems that deal with the different events of the American Civil War. The poems, which survey the history of the conflict between the North and the South, are arranged in a chronological order and depict the...

Charles Southwell was born in London, the youngest of 33 children! The only child of his Fathers third wife Charles was a difficult but clever child. After being introduced to religion by a Christian colleague, who encouraged him to read the Sermons of Timothy Dwight, he thought seriously about it...

Hero and Leander is a mythological short epic by the famous English writer and dramatist Christopher Marlowe. When Marlowe was killed after being accused of blasphemy, he left the poem unfinished to be later completed by George Chapman. The poem follows the love story between the two Greek mythological...

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope was born on February 9th 1863. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels and although he wrote 32 volumes of fiction our memory of him rests almost entirely on two: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and Rupert of Hentzau (1898). After...