Newest Study Guides
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
War and Peace was published as a serialized novel, completed in 1869. Famous for its girth and sprawling ambition, it merges historical fact with invented characters, and philosophy with fiction. For all these reasons, it initially baffled many...
George Bernard Shaw was moved to write his The Doctor’s Dilemma in order explore fully the paradox of how a man can be a genius but still lack honor. It is this tragic circumstance of the individual that moved to Shaw to view the play as a comedy...
Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories consists of tales that were all published in newspapers and periodicals before they were later compiled and published in short story collections during Hawthorne's lifetime. These works were written...
A Single Shard was published in 2001 and was written by Linda Sue Park. It is a novel that is set in ancient Korea, and that tells the story of a young boy named Tree-ear, who is an orphan. He sees a potter and wants to learn how to make pottery,...
Rules, written by Cynthia Lord, was published in 2006.
This book is about Catherine, a 12-year-old girl, who has a little brother named David. She tries to pretend that she is a normal girl with a normal life, but her life is not normal because...
Robert Leslie Conley was enjoying a career as a senior editor in the employ of National Geographic Magazine. And this was back when that magazine held a reputation beyond repute; back before it was in the hands of anti-science magnate, Rupert...
Bridge to Terabithia, written by Katherine Paterson, was published in 1977. The narrative focuses on Jesse Aarons, a boy who lives on a farm and who dreams of being the fastest runner in sixth grade. When he gets back to school, Leslie Burke, who...
The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a well-known published text written by American author Brian Selznick, published in 2007. As this book has 284 pictures between its 533 pictures, it can be assumed that the pictures are of the same importance as the...
At around 60 pages in most editions, Sarah, Plain and Tall is a fairly short novel, but it would be an even thinner volume if published in the form originally conceived. Author Patrician MacLachlan had planned for her deceptively simple story to...
The Kama Sutra is the seminal text on love in Indian civilization - and perhaps the world - and is considered a masterpiece of Sanskrit literature. As a result of its legendary status, the Kama Sutra has achieved a place in pop mythology as a "sex...
Charles Brockden Brown published Wieland in 1798 when he was 27 years old. After quitting a law apprenticeship in 1793, Brown established himself in New York literary circles. His fame rested partly on a pamphlet concerning women’s rights, Alcuin;...
Pygmalion has become by far Shaw's most famous play, mostly through its film adaptation in 1938. Shaw was intimately involved with the making of the film. He wrote the screenplay and was the first man to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy...
Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy has a title true to its promise. In a manner not dissimilar to John Dos Passos’ monument trilogy U.S.A, Auster’s definitive work is actually composed of three separate and distinct novel: City of Glass, Ghosts...
Chanda's Secrets is a book written by Allan Stratton which was published in 2004. The book revolves around the character of Chanda, who is a 16 year old girl. Chanda's younger sister, Sarah dies and this brings immense grief to her family....
The Book of Negroes, also known as Someone Knows My Name, is a novel written by author Lawrence Hill, which was originally published during 2007. It was later published during 2015 by W. W. Norton Company. This novel tells the story of protagonist...
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder is a novel written by James De Mille. It is his most famous and most well read book. After De Mille passed away, Harper’s Weekly published the work in a series and then in 1888, it was published in...
Kate Millet, author of Sexual Politics, wrote of Villette that it was "too subversive to be popular." Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë's friend and her first biographer, said that the story of Villette was not as interesting as that of Jane Eyre....
Published in 2008, Unaccustomed Earth is Jhumpa Lahiri’s second collection of short stories. Characteristic of Lahiri’s work, Unaccustomed Earth explores the Indian American characters’ lives and culturally mixed society. It won the 2008 Frank...
Betty Smith’s novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was first published in 1943. By 1945 it had already been adapted into a very successful movie. Then, by 1952, the story was transformed into a hit musical on Broadway. What was the reason for such...
Shadows was John Cassavetes' directorial debut. The idea for the film grew out of an improvisation from a class he was teaching at his drama school, "The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop." It involved a young African-American woman who was very...
The Mill on the Floss was George Eliot’s third book, after Scenes of Clerical Life (1858) and Adam Bede (1859). She began writing the novel in 1859 and it was first published in 1860, with a few subsequent revised editions. The novel was eagerly...
Fight Club is a Twentieth Century Fox production shot in 1998 and released in the United States in 1999. The film is based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk of the same name. The rights to the novel were acquired by producer Laura Ziskin for $10,000...
The short story “The Most Dangerous Game” was originally published in Collier’s Weekly on January 19, 1924. The story has also been published as “The Hounds of Zaroff.” The main premise of the tale has been adapted numerous times to film and...
The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is a careful, thorough, and brilliant criticism of the mercantile system that governed economic policy in Great Britain during Smith's life. Smith charts the evolution of mercantile principles from the...