Newest Study Guides

Published in 1669, John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is the foundational text for modern philosophical empiricism. This essay set the standard for empirically-based arguments against the traditions of rationalism. Locke puts...

Andrew Motion ascended to that rarest of lofty spheres in English literature when he stepped into history alongside legendary names like Dryden, Wordsworth and Tennyson by being named England’s poet laureate in 1999. The accomplishment is all more...

The writings of Epicurus are primarily known to the modern world through the collection known as the Principal Doctrines, which was curated at some point in during the third century by Diogenes Laertius within his own work titled Lives and...

The Stories of Sui Sin Far is a compilation of short stories written by Sui Sin Far, the pen name of Edith Maude Eaton. Sui Sin Far is actually the Cantonese name for a popular flower in China, the narcissus. Far was born in England to an English...

Lantana is a 2001 Australian film based on the play Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell, who also adapted the screenplay. This thriller centering on the disappearance of Dr. Valerie Somers took viewers and critics along on a ride of twists and...

Joy Kogawa is one of the best known Japanese writers born in Canada. Joy Kogawa is known predominately for her novels but she started her career as a writer by writing and publishing poetry. The poems which are included in the collection entitled...

Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children (2006) focuses on the stories of three friends (Danielle, Marina, and Julius) in their early thirties living in Manhattan in New York in the months leading up to the devastating attacks on the United...

Published in 2006, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success posits the theory that success in all aspects of life—learning, business, competition, and even relationships—is not predetermined by inherent aptitude, intelligence or talent, but rather...

Six years before becoming a household name with his grand picaresque novel about how a man named Garp saw the world, John Irving published his sophomore novel about a man known as Trumper. The Water Method Man can accurately be situated among the...

Although written sometime in the early 1940's by Ella Cara Deloria, American author and anthropologist, Waterlily is a novel not published until 1988, eighteen years after her death. It is available in a condensed form from Deloria's original...

John Irving’s The Cider House Rules is an example of the evolutionary nature of the creative process of writing something as complex as a novel. Inspired by Victorian literature in general and the novels of Charles Dickens specifically, the novel...

Since graduating from The Queen's College, Oxford University with a degree in English Language and Literature, Caryl Phillips has authored plays, essays and novels. His oeuvre tackles a broad range of themes, but focuses in large part on the...

The poems of Billy Collins seem destined to assure he is always relegated to that odd sphere of “major” minor poet. As Ogden Nash discovered before him, having a sense of humor and not being afraid to flaunt it means a deduction in critical points...

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of Joan Didion’s nonfiction articles and essays, originally published in various magazines throughout most of the 1960s. Among the periodicals in which the contents appeared are the American Scholar and...

Published in 1922, Jacob’s Room was the first novel Virginia Woolf published herself through Hogarth Press, the in publishing house she co-founded. The novel represented another break with tradition by becoming the work that Woolf herself admitted...

By the day he met his untimely end on one of the many bloody battlefields of World War I, Edward Thomas had achieved a reputation as a writer and editor. His publication history included essays, critical studies of famous poets and biographies. He...

Frank Wu is an Asian-American novelist born on August 20, 1967 in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating high school, he attended Johns Hopkins University, followed by the University of Michigan Law School, and then Harvard Graduate School of...

The Oresteia proved to be lucky number 13 for Greek dramatist Aeschylus. The playwright collected his thirteenth Athenian drama award with his horrifying and bloody tale of revenge and the nature of evil. The production was mounted in 458 B.C. and...

Published in 2015, The Coming is the fifth novel by African-American author Dr. Daniel Black. While Black's previous novels focused largely on the Black experience in rural Southern and Midwestern America (drawing from his own background and...

The Acharnians is a comedy written by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, and it was first performed in 425 BCE, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The play centers around the character Dikaiopolis, a middle-aged...

A Summer Life by Gary Soto is a collection of 39 autobiographical essays in which Soto gives the readers a vivid description of his days in Fresno, California, as he grew from a young boy to a young adult. The book can be divided into three main...

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex was originally published in 1871 and is a book written by evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. In it, Darwin explores evolutionary theory and natural selection, building upon his already...

Although no credit is actually given on screen, Joseph Mankiewicz ‘s Oscar-winning screenplay for All About Eve is actually based on a short story titled “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr. Actress Elisabeth Bergner related a story of an understudy...

Published in 1805, Fleetwood; Or, The New Man of Feeling is the third novel by William Godwin. Godwin, perhaps known more today for being the father of the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, was a radical figure of renown by the time Fleetwood...