Barnes Noble: 2826 books

In this 1910 volume, Ransome examines the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe, in an attempt to “separate truth from tradition.” Ransome’s careful analysis of Poe’s life, work, and thought processes support his view that Poe’s tales and poetry were merely by-products of his unfinished search for a philosophy of life. An evocative portrait of a pioneering writer.

This posthumous (1920) collection by the landmark English poet includes “Tales and Sketches” (“The Last Generation,” “N’Jawk,” “Pentheus,” “Mansur,” “Candilli,” “Forgotten Warfare,” “The ‘Bus in Stamboul,” “Translations from the Gulistan,” “Philanthropists”),...

Published in 1867, Smoke contributed to Turgenev’s ongoing argument with the Slavophiles and was to trigger his heated political quarrel with Dostoyevsky about the deplorable state of Mother Russia.  Part love story, part political commentary, the novel tells of Litvinov, a quiet, ordinary young man, who travels to study European technology and scientific farming.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.  In The Professor, Charlotte Brontë defiantly created an externally unprepossessing protagonist in William Crimsworth, whose unglamorous appearance and station belie an internal power. He is conscious of banked energies...

This 1899 collection of humorous sketches includes “Some Words on Royalty,” “Actors,” “Madame Tussaud’s,” “Pretending,” “An Infamous Brigade,” “The Sea-Side in Winter,” “Sign-Boards,” “The Blight on the Music Halls,” “Prangley Valley,” “Fashion and Her Bicycle,”...

In this semi-autobiographical work, published in 1881, Moore details his years as a struggling artist in Paris and London. The volume relates bohemian life in Paris in the 1870s and 1880s, and is one of the first English books to introduce many of the French Impressionist artists who are known today as giants in the field.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. The charm of Christopher Morley’s first novel, Parnassus on Wheels, lies in its improbability: a romance between middle-aged lovers who have had no expectation or even hope of romance until now.  Also, like much of...

After the intense and bloody Civil War, Elizabeth and George Armstrong Custer were stationed in Texas, Louisiana, and Kansas. Faced with flash floods, scorpions, wild animals, and Native Americans of uncertain disposition, Elizabeth recounts the reconstruction era of the South and the plains wars with the Native Americans, and the dangerous life of an army officer's wife.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Howells was appointed United States consul in Venice, Italy. In Venetian Life, an utterly engaging travelogue, Howells revises a series of travel letters he had written about his experiences in Venice for the Boston Advertiser. Honest in its love for (yet discomfort in) Venice, it would be followed by Italian Journeys.

English novelist George Gissing traveled to southern Italy to walk in the footsteps of ancient poets, monks, and generals. A deeply personal work, which reveals his love of books and history, this is a vivid account of the region’s poverty and hardship at the turn of the nineteenth century, as well as its glorious past.

First published in 1914, The Author’s Craft  gathers four essays that reveal the essence of what Bennett learned as a practicing writer; namely, the importance of  detailed observation, the art of writing a novel, the art of playwriting, and how a writer can best please his public.

In this important work, Chesterton examines and analyzes the art of the revered British painter and sculptor George Frederick Watts. In writing as beautiful as it is incisive, Chesterton pens an enduring portrait of the artist who was best friends with Tennyson and whose allegorical paintings vividly captured many luminaries of his day.

Known in Scotland as simply “The Bard,” Robert Burns (1759–1796) endured a childhood of hardship and poverty to become a celebrated poet who is today widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland. J. C. Shairp’s biography of Burns is an insightful look at the life of this pioneer of the Romantic Movement.

The author writes that “Nature is the inspiration, art the song” in his introduction to this illuminating collection of biographical sketches which examine how nature inspired the work of such writers as Tennyson, Thoreau, Carlyle, and Wordsworth—these writers, among others in this volume, are considered some of the most contemplative minds of the nineteenth century.