A nervous breakdown, Anton Chekhov

Jane Austen is remembered for her six masterpieces of the Regency era: from the heroines of Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse, to the villains of Mrs. Norris and John Willoughby. But these characters were not born overnight. They sprung from Austen’s experiences as a young girl, and many early iterations can be found in the earliest of her writing: her...

Ursula's relationship with Rupert Birkin, an introspective and misanthropic school inspector, is contrasted with that of Gudrun and Gerald Crich, an overbearing industrialist. Set in a coal-mining town in the English Midlands, their stories explore the disastrous effects of industrialization on the psyche and suggest that rebirth can be achieved only...

Neglected and uncherished, she is horribly lonely, until one day she discovers a walled garden in the grounds that has been kept locked for years. When Mary finds the key to the garden and shares it with two unlikely companions, she opens up a world of hope, and as the garden blooms, Mary and her friends begin to find a new joy in life.

In the course of the essay, Tolstoy shows different attempts to find answers on the examples of science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and the opinions of his fellow novelists. . . . finding no workable solution in any of these, Tolstoy recognizes the deep religious convictions of ordinary people as containing the key to true answers. 

'The vessel drove before her bows two billows of liquid phosphorus'

The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government.

The characters they meet are absurd and yet strangely familiar. Short, fast-paced, funny, The Torrents of Spring throws light on Hemingway's later work - and is a delight to read. Here we can see the developing talent of one of the great novelists of the twentieth century.

'She was bored and fought against her boredom, which only bored her still more.'

Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River, was host to riverboat travelers from around the world, providing a vigorous and variable atmosphere for the young Samuel Clemens to absorb. Clemens became a riverboat pilot and even chose his pen name—Mark Twain—from a term boatmen would call out signifying water depth at two fathoms, meaning safe...

It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.Dickens originally intended Great Expectations to be twice as long, but...

Good and bad times come and go as they struggle with the trials of growing up, getting along, and exploring life outside the comforting walls of home, each discovering her own distinct personality along the way.

‘Three Guineas’, Woolf’s most impassioned polemic, came almost a decade later and broke new ground by challenging the very notions of war and masculinity.

When Ethan takes Zeena’s cousin, Mattie, home from a dance he is entranced: Mattie brings with her the possibility for happiness, and with that she quickly becomes a symbol of hope for Ethan.

‘Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.’

The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations.