IntroductionIn the autumn of 1843, the most famous writer in England was nearly broke.Charles Dickens was 31. His latest novel was selling badly, his publishers were threatening to cut his pay, his father was draining his bank account, and his wife was expecting their fifth child. That year he had also read government reports on children working in mines and … [Read more...] about Walking With Dickens: The Night He Wrote A Christmas Carol
Classic Literature
Middlemarch: What If George Eliot’s Characters Met Again?
Introduction Middlemarch by George Eliot: What If the Characters Met Again After Death?What if Dorothea Brooke could finally ask Edward Casaubon whether he had ever truly loved her?What if Lydgate and Rosamond could confront the question that haunted their marriage: Who was really responsible for their unhappiness?And what if the characters of George Eliot's … [Read more...] about Middlemarch: What If George Eliot’s Characters Met Again?
Middlemarch by George Eliot: The Complete Story in 20 Minutes
Introduction Middlemarch by George Eliot: The Complete Story of Love, Dreams, and RegretWhat if the life you dreamed of became the very life you wanted to escape?A young woman marries a brilliant scholar, believing she has found her life's purpose. A talented doctor arrives in a small English town, determined to change medicine forever. A beautiful young … [Read more...] about Middlemarch by George Eliot: The Complete Story in 20 Minutes
Winnie-the-Pooh at 100: Friendship, Wisdom & Happiness
Introduction On October 14, 1926, A. A. Milne introduced readers to a little bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. One hundred years later, Pooh and his friends continue to remind us of something surprisingly easy to forget: happiness may have less to do with what we accomplish than with the people we share our lives with.In the Hundred Acre Wood, nobody is perfect. … [Read more...] about Winnie-the-Pooh at 100: Friendship, Wisdom & Happiness
The Sun Also Rises Centennial Stories: 5 Modern Lives
Introduction The Sun Also Rises Today: Five Stories About the Life That RemainsA century after The Sun Also Rises, the world looks almost nothing like Hemingway’s. We carry entire libraries in our pockets. We can work from another continent, choose from thousands of potential partners, reinvent careers, cross oceans overnight, and remain connected almost … [Read more...] about The Sun Also Rises Centennial Stories: 5 Modern Lives
The Sun Also Rises Themes & Analysis: Questions That Still Matter
Introduction A hundred years after The Sun Also Rises first appeared, the world surrounding Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley is almost unrecognizable. The wars are different, travel is faster, relationships are mediated through phones, gender roles have changed, and people possess freedoms Hemingway’s characters could scarcely have imagined. Yet the novel’s … [Read more...] about The Sun Also Rises Themes & Analysis: Questions That Still Matter
The Sun Also Rises Centennial: Are We a Lost Generation?
Introduction One hundred years after The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s characters still feel unexpectedly close to us.Jake Barnes, Lady Brett Ashley, Robert Cohn, Pedro Romero, and Bill Gorton lived in the shadow of the First World War. They inherited a world in which familiar ideas about patriotism, masculinity, love, religion, … [Read more...] about The Sun Also Rises Centennial: Are We a Lost Generation?
War and Peace Lessons for Modern Life: 5 Short Stories
Introduction What happens when life refuses to become the story we expected?In Parts 1 and 2 of this War and Peace trilogy, Tolstoy's characters and later Tolstoy himself with literary scholars explored a similar question from different directions. Plans collapse. History exceeds individual control. Love can contain devotion and injury at the same time. … [Read more...] about War and Peace Lessons for Modern Life: 5 Short Stories
War and Peace Meaning: What Tolstoy Wanted Us to See
Introduction What did Tolstoy want us to see when he placed a frightened soldier, a young woman at a ball, a dying father, and a household preparing supper inside the same enormous book? Perhaps he wanted to question the stories we use to decide what matters: greatness, romance, certainty, success, and even happiness.In this fictional conversation, Leo … [Read more...] about War and Peace Meaning: What Tolstoy Wanted Us to See
War and Peace: An Imaginary Conversation on Life
Introduction What if the life we keep trying to reach is making us overlook the people already beside us?In Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, ambition, love, faith, and family unfold within events no individual can fully control. People pursue recognition, belonging, certainty, and happiness. Then life interrupts. A battle changes the meaning of glory. A … [Read more...] about War and Peace: An Imaginary Conversation on Life