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Fifty Classics 4: The Heat of the Day
Completely by chance, and largely contingent on what was immediately available on my shelves, my first four reads for the Fifty Classics project have been women writers of the twentieth century, and each has been my first encounter with their work. The latest in the sequence is Elizabeth Bowen, and her 1948 novel The Heat…
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Fifty Classics 3: A Friend From England
My previous post in this 50 Classics thread was about my first encounter with Iris Murdoch. This one is another first encounter, again with a Booker Prize winning woman author, of roughly the same vintage: Anita Brookner. The Booker was awarded for her best-known novel, Hotel du Lac, whereas A Friend From England did not…
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Fifty Classics 2: The Sea, The Sea
For over half a century, one way or another, I have been involved in reading, researching, teaching and writing about modern and contemporary literature. So, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that, until very recently, I had never read a novel by Iris Murdoch. I was aware of her, of course, and knew of her reputation,…
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Fifty Classics 1: The House of Mirth
My knowledge of American literature is abysmal, especially if you exclude honorary Englishmen T.S. Eliot and Henry James. So I was happy to broaden my horizons by reading Edith Wharton’s 1906 novel, The House of Mirth. I was aware of Edith Wharton as a name, of course, and as a friend of Henry James, but…
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Fifty Classics
Unaccountably, it’s 2026, and what’s more, it’s February already. This means my plan to track my degree experience fifty years later has gone awry somewhat, as I haven’t finished 1974-75. But I will press on with that, and move on to 75-76 in forthcoming posts. Before that, however, I need to share an announcement about…