The 111 Greatest Novellas

Aphra Behn's most famous work might disappoint a reader who has heard it's a staunchly anti-slavery, anti-colonialist or feminist work. One may find Oroonoko is none of those things, at least by modern standards.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is one of those "classic" works that is better known for its impact in its time that for its subsequent readability. It's more influential than admired. In fact, any reader today is likely.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

It's to the credit of Castle Rackrent that it's usually taken to be a novel. By its meagre word count, the text constitutes a novella and—shorn of introduction, footnotes and glossary—barely that. But Maria Edgeworth's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

Coming out a year after The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Jews' Beech Tree is considered one of the first crime or mystery works. But while Edgar Allan Poe's story is obviously seminal as detective fiction.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carol, if not from reading Charles Dickens, then from incessant showings of the many film versions, especially at the holiday season. And everyone thinks they know the moral.... Critique • Quotes • Text • At the movies • Buy

Immensee is one of those seemingly simple, short fictional works that can read differently each time you sample it. The story recalled by an old man is more or less the same each time through. A young boy Reinhardt forms a.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

You think you know Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness even if you haven't read it in years, or ever. It's been widely taught in school, so its most famous lines ring with musty familiarity. Its plot has been adapted for.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

With a few exceptions, I dislike the kind of horror and fantasy that's in your face—tales that start with incredible, supernatural phenomena and then keep building on it, getting wilder and wilder. It just seems...well.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

The argument over Death in Venice is usually about whether the theme is homosexual desire. Which is too bad really. When I first read Thomas Mann's short novel as a young man myself, I was adamant.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • At the movies • Buy

The character of Ah Q in Lu Hsun's long story (or short novel) has given rise to a unique expression in China. "Ah Quism" is the attempt find spurious moral victory in a defeat. In the story Ah Q is continually defeated by his.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

What a debut. The Postman Always Rings Twice was James M. Cain's first novel, published relatively late in life for a writer, when he was in his forties. But already his writing is as tight and intense as any work of the past.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

It has always seemed like the perfect American novella. A poignant and disturbing story told effortlessly, of simple folks on the fringe of society who turn out to be quite complex. But read Of Mice and Men a second.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

The books that became cult—and counterculture—favourites in the iconoclastic 1960s and early 1970s can be divided into two categories: 1. Those that were written during and for that period, such as Stranger in a.... Critique • Quotes • Translations • Buy

Animal Farm is a work I include on the list of greatest works under protest. It's not that I dislike George Orwell. I like most of his work very much. Nor do I consider Animal Farm particularly bad. It's very cleverly done for.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

A lot has been said about Hemingway's ideals of courage, grace under pressure, and all that. My own feeling is that what he really wanted was to be considered wise. His lead characters usually have a stillness about them.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy