“I’m a free Narnian.”“We’re free Narnians.”“He was a free Narnian horse.“ “I have been longing to go to the North all my life.” “Of course you have. That’s because of the blood that’s in you. I’m sure you’re true Northern stock.” For a series of books written for children CS Lewis sure doesn’t sugar-coat childhood. …
Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell (1853)
I spent the past week with the ladies of Cranford. It was a delightful time listening to stories of their girlhood friendships and family life and the bittersweet present where many of their dreams were not realized. Still, I was captivated at this group of women trying to maintain their dignity through the aging process …
Maurice, EM Forster (1971)
A devastating, but ultimately satisfying look at the sexual awakening of Maurice Hall. Written early in the 20th century at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offense, Forster chose to delay its publication until after he died. Published in 1971, a year after his death we follow Maurice to Cambridge with the assumption he …
The Matriarch, GB Stern (1924)
…In a typical chronicle of the Israelites, it would be taken for granted that the girls did not count at all…if they give birth to a boy who will grow into a man, they have fulfilled their destiny in the only possible way. When you have heard more about the adventure of being a Rakonitz, …
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)
Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always….What next, now? Something will come if I think and wait a little…the Magic will tell me. I was deeply touched by this book. The coping mechanism that …
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A Stitch in Time, Penelope Lively (1976)
Eleven year-old Maria Foster talks to inanimate objects. She has conversations with cats and trees, too. It is clear she is curious and smart and the conversations she begins with her parents, based on what she has observed in the world or something she read leave them bewildered, as if they just don’t know what …
A White Heron, Sarah Orne Jewett (1886)
The Story Eight-year old Sylvia came to her grandmother’s house in the woods a year ago to help the old woman with farm chores. She has taken to this new life very easily and now, as her grandmother says, “There ain’t a foot o’ ground she don’t know her way over, and the wild creatures …
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser (1900)
Nature is so grim. The city, which represents it so effectively, is also so grim. It does not care at all. It is not conscious. The passing of so small an organism as that of a man or woman is nothing to it. Carrie Meeber, or Sister Carrie as her family calls her, is a …
The Fruit of the Tree, Edith Wharton (1907)
“Human life is sacred,” he said sententiously.“Ah, that must have been decreed by someone who had never suffered!” Justine exclaimed. The Fruit of the Tree is a departure from most Edith Wharton novels that deal with the superficiality and hypocrisy of the lives of the upper class. While that plays a role here, the novel …
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Daniel Deronda, George Eliot (1876)
“But now look up the river,” said Mordecai, “See the sky, how it is slowly fading. I have always loved this bridge: I stood on it when I was a little boy. It s a meeting-place for the spiritual messengers. It is true—what the Masters said—that each order of things has its angel…Here I have …
Classic Laurie 