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A lecture on the art of fiction, given by the English critic Walter Besant on April 25, 1884, and an answer to the lecture by American writer Henry James in the same year. (Summary by Julie VW)...

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Literature

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Frederick Elliot is a student at early 20th century Cambridge, a university that seems like paradise to him, amongst bright if cynical companions, when he receives a visit from two friends, an engaged young woman, Agnes Pembroke, and her older brother, Herbert. The Pembrokes are Rickie’s only friends from home. An orphan who grew up living with cousins, he was sent to a public (boarding) school where he was shunned and bullied because of his lame foot, an inherited weakness, and frail body. Agnes, as it happens, is engaged to Gerald, now in the army, who was one of the sturdy youths who bullied Rickie at school. Rickie is not brilliant at argument, but he is intensely responsive to poetry and art, and is accepted within a circle of philosophical and intellectual fellow-students led by a brilliant but especially cynical aspiring philosopher, Stuart Ansell, who refuses, when he is introduced to her, even to acknowledge that Agnes exists. (from Wikipedia)...

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Literature

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A Phantom Lover is a supernatural novella by Vernon Lee (pseudonym of Violet Paget) first published in 1886. Set in a Kentish manor house, the story concerns a portrait painter commissioned by a squire, William Oke, to produce portraits of him and his wife, the eccentric Mrs. Alice Oke, who bears a striking resemblance to a woman in a mysterious, seventeenth century painting. (Summary by Anthony Leslie)...

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Horror/Ghost stories, Literature

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Die Serapionsbrüder nannte E.T.A. Hoffmann zusammenfassend eine Sammlung seiner zwischen 1819-1821 entstandenen Novellen. In einer fiktiven Rahmenhandlung beschreibt er die Treffen einiger Freunde am Tag des Heiligen Serapion. Bei diesen Treffen erzählen die künstlerisch interessierten Freunde einander Geschichten (die Novellen Hoffmanns) und beurteilen diese gegenseitig. Der Begriff des serapiontischen Prinzips leitet sich von diesem Werk ab. Gemeint ist damit eine bestimmte Art zu dichten, bei der das Erzählte vorher von dem Dichter 'geschaut' werden sollte. Sie darf also nicht einfach nur drauflos fabulieren, sondern die gedachte Möglichkeit des Erdichteten ist absolute Bedingung. Der Dichter wird dabei als Seher, als Künder verborgener Zusammenhänge zweier Welten, aufgefasst. Er bewegt sich zwischen Wachen und Träumen und vermittelt zwischen Wahn und Wirklichkeit, Geist und Seele, Menschlichem und Unmenschlichem. Diese Auswahl enthält Die Serapionsbrüder, Der Einsiedler Serapion, Serapion und das serapiontische Prinzip, Eine Spukgeschichte, Vampirismus und Die Bergwerke zu Falun....

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Literature, Horror/Ghost stories

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Eduard, ein reicher Baron, lebt mit seiner Gattin Charlotte zurückgezogen in einem Schloss, das von einem großen Park umgeben ist. In zweiter Ehe haben die beiden Liebenden von einst endlich zueinander gefunden. Glücklich über ihre neue Lebenssituation widmen sie sich vornehmlich dem Garten und der Parkgestaltung. Diese Idylle wird gestört, als Eduard seinen Freund, den Hauptmann, auf das Anwesen einlädt. So lässt auch Charlotte ihre Nichte Ottilie herbeiholen, damit diese ihr Gesellschaft leistet. Bald schon fühlt sich Eduard zu Ottilie und Charlotte zum Hauptmann hingezogen. Eines Nachts schleicht Eduard heimlich durchs Schloss und gerät auf der Suche nach Ottilie - eine sonderbare Verwechslung ging in seiner Seele vor - ins Schlafgemach seiner Gemahlin. In seiner Vorstellung ist es jedoch Ottilie, die er in den Armen hält, indes Charlotte das Bild des Hauptmanns vorschwebt. Aus dieser Vereinigung geht ein Kind hervor. Als der Abschied von Ottilie und dem Hauptmann droht, gesteht Eduard Ottilie seine Liebe. Der Hauptmann und Charlotte verständigen sich wortlos, ihrer gemeinsamen Liebe zu entsagen. Eduard hingegen kann seine Gefühl...

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Fiction, Literature

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Published in book form in April 1857, the novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was notoriously perfectionist about his writing and claimed to always be searching for le mot juste (the right word). (Summary from Wikipedia)....

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Literature, Fiction, Romance, Tragedy

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Inspired by Jane Eyre, Dinah Maria Craik's 1850 novel, Olive, was one of the first to feature a disabled central character. 'Slightly deformed' from birth, Olive believes that she will never be able to marry like other women, so she devotes her life to her art, her mother, and above all, her religion. It takes a dark secret from the past and a new, fascinating acquaintance, to make her realize what her life could be. (Summary by Arielle Lipshaw)...

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Fiction, Literature

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Also known as the Roman Elegies, Erotica Romana is von Goethe's literary tribute to human sexuality and eroticism. Written in 24 elegies to emulate classical Roman elegy writers such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Catullus, von Goethe creates a lyrical work of art that has often been subject to censorship. (Summary by Adam E. Maroney)...

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Erotica, Literature, Poetry

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This is Edith Wharton's earliest published collection of short stories (1899). Like much of her later work, they touch on themes of marriage, male/female relationships, New York society, and the nature and purpose of art. One of the stories, The Twilight of the God, is written as a short play. The role of Warland is read by mb, and the role of Oberville by Bruce Pirie. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Short stories, Literature

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This novel is subtitled The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School. The Quire is the group of musicians who accompany the hymns at the local church and we follow the fortunes of one member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day. Another element of the book is the battle between the traditional musicians of the Quire and the local vicar, Parson Maybold, who installs a church organ. This battle illustrates the developing technology being introduced in the Victorian era and its threat to traditional country ways. The novel was published anonymously in 1872 and is often seen as Thomas Hardy's most gentle and pastoral novel. In 2005 Under the Greenwood Tree was adapted for a television version by Ashley Pharoah. (Summary by Rachel Lintern)...

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Literature, Romance

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“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?” “We are dominated by journalism.... Journalism governs for ever and ever.” One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now. This compendium work - skilfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason - ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged immorality of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The disastrous outcome of these trials provides an ironic conclusion to the earlier knockabout exchanges between Oscar and his reviewers. In these he is at his flamboyant best, revelling in the publicity he pretends to disdain. His brave performances in the dock did nothing, however, to save him from hard labour, the treadmill and complete physical and moral breakdown which the law found it necessary to inflict on him. In contrast to th...

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Literature, Biography, Philosophy