British/UK Fiction

The Country Life initially reads like English "chick lit," but then the work takes meaningful and thoughtful turns, with a witty and humorous tinge.

Dec 10, 2009 - Clarissa Caldwell

Adams continues to weave a spell with his animal characters in this tale of two dogs who escape from an animal research facility in the English Lake District.

Dec 9, 2009 - Talia Sepersky

The Other Queen is the well-reasearched, poorly-executed tale of the early years of Mary, Queen of Scots imprisonment with the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Dec 9, 2009 - Kristyn Gansen

Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney uses rhetoric and grammatical innuendo to enforce the validity of Astrophil's advances on Stella in this celebrated sonnet sequence.

Dec 6, 2009 - Michelle White

In the poem "Easter Wings" 17th century poet and Anglican priest George Herbert proposes the subsuming of Jesus' triumph into the self as a way to be purified from sin.

Dec 6, 2009 - Michelle White

19th century sonnet "Bright Star" constitutes a halfway point between Petrarchan and Shakespearean styles of sonnet; this tension is integral to the success of the poem.

Dec 5, 2009 - Michelle White

English novelist Dorothy Richardson, and the "stream of consciousness" technique she developed and championed, are suffering from neglect.

Dec 4, 2009 - Douglas Nordfors

Romantic sonnets "Bright Star" by John Keats and "Sonnet XXIII" by Charlotte Smith both feature stars as their subjects, but the poems' speakers employ distinct rhetoric.

Dec 4, 2009 - Michelle White

"A Christmas Carol" is best known, but Charles Dickens wrote four other Christmas books and seventeen Christmas stories. Dickens' typical style dominates these.

Dec 4, 2009 - David Todd

While the movie, A Passage to India, based on Forster's book is not literally faithful to the action of the book, it can be argued it is faithful to a potential subtext.

Dec 2, 2009 - Melissa Howard

Daphne Du Maurier's classic Gothic novel Rebecca has now earned the critical acclaim that it deserves. A close reading reveals a Biblical allusion to the Serpent.

Nov 30, 2009 - Teresa Knudsen

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was instrumental in changing the course of British Literature. This article outlines some of the unique features of this work.

Nov 29, 2009 - Marilyn Michaud

Nick Hornby's latest novel, Juliet, Naked, returns him to familiar ground by once again placing music, art, the creative process and fan obsession under the microscope.

Nov 29, 2009 - Ryan Miller

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a novel of family history and the expectations of Western life.

Nov 28, 2009 - Holly Thacker

Take a break from busy holidays. Curl up with a cup of tea and a British romance novel, set in the wild Yorkshire moors, or the cliffs of Cornwall by the temputous sea.

Nov 27, 2009 - Teresa Knudsen

Six novels with six different stories and several heroines, but do you remember who's who and what's what?

Nov 25, 2009 - M.L. Costa

Before her masterpiece Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier was inspired on the coast of Cornwall to write The Loving Spirit, as told in her autobiography, Myself When Young.

Nov 25, 2009 - Teresa Knudsen

Foundling orphan to innocent maid, redeemable soul to darkened villain, Charles Dickens created many memorable characters with individual traits of similar types.

Nov 23, 2009 - M.L. Costa

Pell flies the family nest on the night before her wedding taking no chances of having her wings clipped. She searches, finds and loses taking us for a rough ride.

Nov 23, 2009 - Zuzana Minarikova

The holiday season is beginning earlier and earlier, but Graham Swift's intriguing exploration of love and murder will protect the month of November from holiday assault.

Nov 22, 2009 - Melissa Morelli Lacroix

Benjamin Black better known among literary circles as John Banville has successfully entered the detective thriller and crime fiction genre with his noir mystery trilogy.

Nov 21, 2009 - Christine Breen-Williams

Money cannot buy happiness. Or can it? Follow Fleur Daxeny on her journey as she attempts to steal money from a lonely widower.

Nov 20, 2009 - Kristyn Gansen

The Noel Langley adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' classic novella, for the silver screen is delightful but not completely true to book.

Nov 20, 2009 - Melissa Howard

As Great Expectations Pip strives to become a gentleman, he learns a lot about life and the value and price of money.

Nov 18, 2009 - Lito Apostolakou

Dickens makes Great Expectations Pip suffer with unrequited love, gives Estella a heart of stone and the reader some of the best quotes on love and rejection.

Nov 18, 2009 - Lito Apostolakou

Reading as a writer is quite different from reading as a reader. A writer reads slowly, relishing every well- constructed sentence, identifying theme and much more.

Nov 17, 2009 - Anita Saran

Described as "compactly perfect" and Dickens' "most understated" work, Great Expectations is a story about guilt, desire and moral redemption.

Nov 16, 2009 - Lito Apostolakou

From roast goose and chestnuts to pudding and oranges, Dickens describes Xmas food with relish and affection in A Christmas Carol. His food quotes are good to taste.

Nov 14, 2009 - Lito Apostolakou

Gregory breaks down the sexual intrigue surround King Henry VII's court while keeping it interesting for the reader in this magnificent historical fiction novel.

Nov 13, 2009 - Kristyn Gansen

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is filled with portraits of common Victorian people trying to get by.

Nov 13, 2009 - Melissa Howard

A look at the main characters in Charles Dickens' novella, A Christmas Carol.

Nov 13, 2009 - Melissa Howard

From "Bah Humbug" to "God Bless Us Everyone" Dickens A Christmas Carol contains some great quotes about Christmas, social injustice, poverty and kindness.

Nov 13, 2009 - Lito Apostolakou

An outline of the details and plot of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, a story of social justice and of the conversion to good in one human's heart at Christmas time.

Nov 10, 2009 - Melissa Howard

First published in 1932, Sunset Song is a lyrical evocation of rural Scotland, the land and its people, in the years before and during the First World War.

Nov 10, 2009 - Maggie Craig

The romantic stories of Jane Austen feature many of the same themes and character types. The charming and deceptive rogue is perhaps the most interesting of these.

Nov 8, 2009 - Laura Briggs

Review of a new critical edition of the nineteenth century vampire serial Varney the Vampire, with an introduction, footnotes and other supplementary material.

Nov 8, 2009 - Amelia Hill

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga acquaints readers with the rich India as well as the poor India and focuses on the dichotomy between the two.

Nov 7, 2009 - Preetam Kaushik

Delve deeper into the meaning of John Bunyan's classic book The Pilgrim's Progress.

Nov 5, 2009 - Melissa Howard

One of the world's most famous and well-read books, The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, is unknown or misunderstood in today's environment of cultural ignorance.

Nov 5, 2009 - Melissa Howard

Historical novel fans recognize Georgette Heyer as a paragon of the genre for her exquisite prose and extensive historical research. My Lord John is her magnum opus.

Nov 4, 2009 - Eilene Toppin Ording

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of English author David Herbert (D.H.) Lawrence's works lies in their complexities of male sexuality.

Nov 4, 2009 - Kathy Hahn

Does one always get one's just rewards? Are good acts compensated with a prize, and punishment meted out for bad deeds? Maugham tells us an interesting tale.

Nov 4, 2009 - Lucille Lever

Sacred Hearts is a title that evokes images of the passion of Christ. The religious title is ironic, because in the end this story is not about religion, but about power.

Nov 3, 2009 - Eilene Toppin Ording

Aldous Huxley's prescient look into a world beholden to advanced eugenics, social caste, sexuality, and soma is riveting and has aged extremely well.

Nov 3, 2009 - Nicholas Morine

The book that brought us the Ministry of Truth, Big Brother, and the language of Newspeak is an intellectually stimulating dystopia.

Nov 3, 2009 - Nicholas Morine

The author Louis de Bernières grew up in a Surrey village and the short stories in Notwithstanding reflect memories of rural idyllic childhood and English eccentricity.

Oct 30, 2009 - Martin P Wilson

Thomas Hardy had two simultaneous funerals, due to a clash between family wishes and the desire to give due respect to a writer of national importance.

Oct 29, 2009 - John Welford

Though Dracula and Lestat are far better known today, modern vampire literature owes a great deal to Polidori's Lord Ruthven.

Oct 29, 2009 - Jenny Ashford

The bestselling British author reveals another slice of women's history in this rip-roaring ride of a novel. Teenager Serafina is sent to a convent against her will.

Oct 26, 2009 - Victoria Robinson

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World didn't just adapt those two Patrick O'Brian novels. Incidents from numerous Aubrey-Maturin adventures appear in the film.

Oct 23, 2009 - Luke Arnott