The work that set the pattern for all subsequent multi-generational family sagas in English, John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga, comprising three novels and two short interludes, covers a period from the late Victorian to the late Edwardian age in Britain, beginning in 1886 and ending in 1920 when the last surviving member of the older generation has… Continue reading John Galsworthy’s “The Forsyte Saga”
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Sharon Olds’ “New Year’s Song”
Anne Bradstreet’s “Before the Birth of One of Her Children”
Gwendolyn Brooks’ “First Fight, Then Fiddle”
John Fowles’ “The Magus”
John Fowles was an acclaimed author whose novels, particularly the first three—The Collector (1963), The Magus (1965) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)—have been widely admired international best-sellers. In 2008, The Times named Fowles as number 30 in its list of the top 50 greatest British writers since 1945. The French Lieutenant’s Woman was ranked number 31 on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest… Continue reading John Fowles’ “The Magus”
E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India”
E.M. Forster is chiefly remembered today as one of the premier novelists of the Edwardian period in the early twentieth century, though in fact he published only five novels in his lifetime (his long-suppressed homoerotic novel Maurice was not published until after his death). Of these, three are recognized classics: A Room With a View (1908), a romance as… Continue reading E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India”
Ford Madox Ford’s “Parade’s End”
Ford Madox Ford was a hugely prolific novelist, essayist and literary critic in the first half of the twentieth century whom few contemporary American readers are likely to have heard of and even fewer to have read. Yet two of his myriad publications are so highly admired that they regularly appear on “Greatest Novel” lists.… Continue reading Ford Madox Ford’s “Parade’s End”
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”
Gatsby is indeed another no-brainer for sure. It’s hard to imagine a list of the 100 best novels in English that does not include Fitzgerald’s magnum opus. As many readers will remember, it came in as number one on Time magazine’s famous list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923 (the year Time premiered). And it was #2 on the Modern Library… Continue reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”