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.
Pushkin, already an established poet, began writing Eugene Onegin in 1823 while exiled from the capital to southern Russia. He published parts of each chapter in serialization as he wrote them before printing each complete chapter in booklet form....
Burmese Daysis George Orwell's first novel, and a searing critique of British imperialism. It is notable for deriving its plot and themes from the events of Orwell's own life.
In 1922 Orwell traveled to Burma to become an English police officer....
"The Devil and Tom Walker" first appeared in author Washington Irving's 1824 collection of short stories,Tales of a Traveller, in the "Money-Diggers" section. Though it is still widely known, it is not quite as famous as some of his other works,...
The Garden Party and Other Storiesby Katherine Mansfield was first published in 1922 by Constable and Co., a notable publishing house in London. The work was dedicated to her husband, John Middleton Murry. The collection of short stories was the...
This collection of short stories includes some of Ray Bradbury's most famous and cherished works. Many are from his 1950 short story collection, The Martian Chronicles, which chronicles the colonization of Mars by men from Earth. Although The...
Chinese Cinderella is the story of Adeline Yen Mah's youth as the unwanted daughter of a rising businessman in the midst of a great transformation within Chinese society. Adeline’s affluent, powerful family considers her bad luck after her mother...
Silencewas published in 1966 and is often regarded as Endo's finest achievement. It won the Tanizaki prize in Japan the year it was published.Silencetells the story of a young Portuguese priest, sent to Japan in the 1600s when Christians in Japan...
Equus,written in 1973, is one of Peter Shaffer's most celebrated plays. It tells the story of a boy who has a strange, religious fascination with horses. He is treated by a psychiatrist who, in turn, realizes some things about himself during these...
In a letter to the Daily Chronicle dated 28 April 1898, Shaw explained the conversations that led him to writeMrs. Warren's Profession.His friend, actress Janet Achurch, had pointed him to the short storyYvetteby Guy de Maupassant as a possible...
Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus was written by Carolina Maria de Jesus. It includes several pages of photography and an afterword written by Robert M. Levine. David St. Clair is the translator, and Audalio Dantas is the...
Emerson lived and wrote in the days of Westward expansion, religious upheaval, and domestic and international political ferment.
He and his generation grew up during the War of 1812, the Annexation of Texas, the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the...
The Wars is a 1977 novel by Timothy Findley about the experiences of a young Canadian officer in World War I. Findley dedicated the novel to his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, who fought in the First World War and survived. Findley drew upon...
Three Cups of Tea, originally published in 2006, struck a chord with the American public almost immediately, rocketing to the New York Times bestseller list for four years. A story infused with adventure, set in the little-known Baltistan region...
"The Rover," alternatively known as "The Banish't Cavaliers," is the most frequently read and performed of Aphra Behn's plays (Burke, 118). First performed by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1677, the play was initially...
Educating Rita is one of playwright Willy Russell’s most well regarded works, as well as one of the most popular works for the theater of the late 20th century. Russell based the play on his own experience of growing up in a working class...
One of James Baldwin’s earliest works, “Sonny’s Blues” is a perennial favorite of college anthologies and perhaps his most widely read short story. Initially published in 1957, it was included in the 1965 collection entitled Going to Meet the Man....
Left to Tell is Immaculée Ilibagiza's memoir about her ordeal surviving the Rwandan Genocide. The book was published in 2006, 12 years after the 1994 genocide that claimed one million lives in 100 days. Immaculée recounts her life leading up to...
Cyrano de Bergerac is one of the most famous 19th century works for the stage. It has been staged countless times and is still a mainstay of high school, college, and professional theater. It has also received a great deal of scholarly attention...
Originally published in 1759, The Theory of Moral Sentiments revealsAdam Smith's comprehensive system that explains where morality arises from, how people make moral decisions, and what constitutes virtue. This philosophical tract was written...
An Enemy of the People is one of Henrik Ibsen's most popular and well-known plays among audiences and producers –but it is also one of Arthur Miller's best-known staged works. This situation results from the fact that Miller translated and...
Published in 1980, Midnight’s Children follows the tumultuous transition into India's and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan’s independence after the partition of British India. The story itself is allegorical with the main events being about the life...
Widely considered to be Ariel Dorfman's most influential play,Death and the Maidenexplores the challenges of restoring democracy and stability to a country recovering from an oppressive military dictatorship. Even though the play never...
Alas, Babylontells the story of what would have happened if the Cold Wardidresult in a nuclear attack, set entirely in the small town of Fort Repose, Florida, which is based on the real city of Mount Dora, Florida. The novel was published in 1959,...
Insurgentis the second novel in Veronica Roth's debut trilogyDivergent,preceded byDivergentand followed byAllegiant.It was published in May 2012by Katherine Tegen Books,and continues the story of protagonist Tris Prior and her quest to reform a...
