Barnes Noble: 2826 books

This 1890 biography contains a chronological telling of the ancestors, birth, education, works, and personal life of the great American writer.  Conway begins, “Hawthorne, through his peculiar sensibility shrank from men, loved mankind, and described his earliest writings as ‘attempts to open an intercourse with the world.’”

Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life stands as a remarkable narrative on its own merits, but even more significant is its relationship to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  It is strange that the inspiration for a character whose name is a contemporary curse...

In Fame and Fiction published in 1901, Bennett analyzes the tastes and whims of the “great public.” He includes chapters on popular authors of his day:  J. M. Barrie, George Gissing, Ivan Turgenev, George Moore, and even some whose popularity was more fleeting.  Underlying all is Bennett’s fervent democratic belief that Fame dies but the Soul lives. 

Partial Portraits examines the work of a range of authors, such as Emerson, Eliot, Trollope, and Stevenson. It includes one of James’s most famous essays, The Art of Fiction, in which he argues that writers should not be limited in their subject matter, and that the only obligation a writer has is to make the work interesting.

In this thoughtful collection of essays, published in 1893, James offers his critique on the art of illustration as he pens incisive profiles of several artists. The work is best known for James’s influential essay on John Singer Sargent, whose art work James found “astonishing,” and for his revealing...

Known to history as the mistress of Lord Admiral Nelson—Emma, or, Lady Hamilton (1765-1815) enflamed imaginations across Europe. Actress, model, dancer, and hostess, her tempestuous and racy youth is brought to life in this 1912 translation of Schumacher’s Liebe und Leben der Lady Hamilton.

This 1922 novel is an early example of a modern metafiction.  Based on Van Vechten's own experiences in Paris, and featuring himself as first-person narrator, as well as many of his friends and acquaintances as characters, the novel revolves around an entirely fictional personage, the eponymous Peter Whiffle, a would-be writer.

This 1898 satire depicts a medieval village whose executioner—a beautiful woman—wins the hearts of those she must kill.  Upon publication, Literary World deemed the book, “A delightful little tale with a tinge of satire in it. For gracefulness of style and charm in the telling of a story it is in the front rank, and that is saying a great deal.”

The Travels of Marco Polo is unquestionably one of the world's greatest travel books and the memoir of the West's most famous traveler. Composed in 1298, the book describes Marco Polo's travels across the entire continent of Asia and provides the only comprehensive travelogue of a European traveler...

This 1897 collection focuses on Hearn's perceptions of his newly adopted country of Japan through the lens of Buddhism. His beautiful musings on the juxtaposition between a children’s playground and death vivify the Buddhist idea of dying.  His reminiscence on a trip to Kyoto places the reader there, and his meditation on Nirvana is amazingly clear.

A volume in the Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans series, this 1901 life of Longfellow was written with an admiring yet varied and precise pen. The book was described in a contemporary review in the Nation as "at once workmanlike and sympathetic. . . . It's chief virtues are clarity and good sense."

This 1906 collection of essays by a noted American educator and lecturer covers the lives, works, and character of nineteen authors—including Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Francis...

Some of William Dean Howells’s best fiction examines the contrast between different manners or levels of sophistication, a subject made familiar to him in part by his sojourn as an American in Italy. This collection of stories shows American and Italian manners in conflict, drawing on Howells’s own experiences as a diplomat in Venice.

From his perch as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, author, editor, and literary critic William Dean Howells discussed his theories of realism in literature in his column, “The Editor’s Study.” Highly influential, this collection of Howells’s essays and ideas is an invaluable resource for any reader or student with a passion for literature.