Tag: Classics Club Review

Book Review: Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
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Book Review: Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth

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Title: Castle Rackrent Author: Maria Edgeworth Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2009 (1800) Genre: Classics / Historical Summary: With her satire on Anglo-Irish landlords in Castle Rackrent (1800), Maria Edgeworth pioneered the regional novel and inspired Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley (1814). Politically risky, stylistically innovative, and wonderfully entertaining, the novel changes the focus of conflict in Ireland from religion to class, and… Continue reading Book Review: Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth

Book Review: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena by Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus
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Book Review: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena by Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus

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Title: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena Author: Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus Translator: Robin Hard Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2015 (c.200 BC) Genre: Classics / Mythology Summary: Athena seized the writhing serpent and hurled it into the sky, and fixed it to the very pole of the heavens. The constellations we recognize today were first mapped by the ancient Greeks,… Continue reading Book Review: Constellation Myths: with Aratus’s Phaenomena by Eratosthenes, Hyginus, and Aratus

Book Review: The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve
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Book Review: The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve

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Title: The Old English Baron Author: Clara Reeve Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2008 (1778) Genre: Gothic / Classic Summary: When Sir Philip Harclay returns to England after a long absence, he finds that his childhood friend, Arthur, Lord Lovel, is no longer alive, and that the castle and estates of the Lovel family have twice changed hands. But a… Continue reading Book Review: The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve

Book Review: The Complete Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt
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Book Review: The Complete Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt

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Title: The Complete Poems Author: Sir Thomas Wyatt Publisher: Penguin Classics Date: 1978 (c.1530s) Genre: Classics / Poetry Summary: As a diplomat in Renaissance Europe, and a luminary at the court of Henry VII, Sir Thomas Wyatt wrote in an incestuous world where everyone was uneasily subject to the royal whims and rages. Wyatt had himself survived… Continue reading Book Review: The Complete Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Book Review: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
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Book Review: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

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Title: Don Quixote Author: Miguel de Cervantes Publisher: Penguin Classics Date: 2003 (1615) Genre: Classics / Fiction Summary: ‘Didn’t I tell you they were only windmills? And only someone with windmills on the brain could have failed to see that!’ Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become a knight… Continue reading Book Review: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Book Review: The Major Works of John Donne
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Book Review: The Major Works of John Donne

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Title: The Major Works Author: John Donne Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2008 (c.1600s) Genre: Classics / Poetry / Theology Summary: John Donne is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century and has often been referred to as the founder of the metaphysical genre. His poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of tones, images,… Continue reading Book Review: The Major Works of John Donne

Book Review: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
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Book Review: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe

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Title: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs Author: John Foxe Publisher: Oxford University Press Date: 2009 (1563/1583) Genre: Theology Summary: This vast collection of unforgettable accounts of religious persecution exerted as great an influence on early modern England and New England as the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It contains many stirring stories of the apprehension, interrogation,… Continue reading Book Review: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe

Book Review: Middlemarch by George Eliot
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Book Review: Middlemarch by George Eliot

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Title: Middlemarch Author: George Eliot Publisher: Penguin Classics Date: 2012 (1871) Genre: Classics / Historical Fiction Summary: Taking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea… Continue reading Book Review: Middlemarch by George Eliot

Book Review: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
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Book Review: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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Title: The House of Mirth Author: Edith Wharton Publisher: Penguin Date: 2012 (1905) Genre: Classics / Fiction / Social Satire Summary: Wharton creates a portrait of a stunning beauty who, though raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically, is reaching her 29th year, an age when her youthful blush is drawing to a close and her marital prospects… Continue reading Book Review: The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
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Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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Title: Murder on the Orient Express Author: Agatha Christie Publisher: HarperCollins UK Date: 2013 (1934) Genre: Crime & Mystery Summary: This title finds the Orient Express stopped in its tracks. The luxurious train set of with a full passenger list but by the morning there was one fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times,… Continue reading Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie