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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...

"The Scarlet Ibis" is a short story written by James Hurst, first published in The Atlantic Monthlyin July 1960. It is the first and only piece by Hurst to come to prominence and reach a wide audience, but it has had a profound effect on the...

Published in 1682 and written by Puritan colonist Mary Rowlandson, TheSovereignty and Goodness of Godprovides a valuable departure from the elite, male, English perspectiveson King Phillip's War (1675-76), a war between the Indians and colonists...

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is loosely based on author Sherman Alexie's life. Alexie tells the story of Junior, a 14-year old boy growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. In adiary narration style, the novel explores...

The following stories are a collection of some of Ursula Le Guin’s most famous short stories and novelettes. They are set in various complex worlds in unknown galaxies; together, these stories explore concepts of sociology, psychology, religion,...

The Caretaker is one of playwright Harold Pinter's most popular plays, and certainly one of the 20th century's most notable works of the stage. It is Pinter's second full-length play, but his first major success. Critics delve into its historical,...

First appearing in printinHarper's Magazinein October 1937, "The Chrysanthemums" is considered by many to be the best story John Steinbeck ever wrote, and among the top short stories of the twentieth century. In 1938, "The Chrysanthemums" was...

Hannah Webster Foster wrote and published The Coquette under the pseudonym of "A Lady of Massachusetts" in 1797. The book, an epistolary novel (told through letters), became one of the most popular novels of the 18th century.

Foster based her...

The Testing is the first book in a series of the same name written by Joelle Charbonneau. The story follows 16-year-old Malencia "Cia" Vale as she battles her fellow peers from all across the United Commonwealth for a handful of seats in the...