18 books like Goldsmith's The vicar of Wakefield
Moll Flanders
These are the true confessions of a remarkable and passionate young woman are thought to have been based on the adventures of a real prisoner in Newgate where Moll was born. ostensibly written as a warning to wrongdoers, the moral of Defoe's candid and cautionary tale is often lost in the sheer vitality of Moll - one of the supreme characters of English comic fiction.
Her fortunes and…
Shares: History
The lady of the lake
Lady Of The Lake is a lovely, 6-piece poem by Sir Walter Scott. This poetic story is the basis for many later works by other authors, and to this day, still sets the pace for emerging and contemporary writers. This work has inspired operas, has been misinterpreted by racist fools, and even now, it is able to move the hearts and minds of those who are currently present, as it surely will,…
Shares: Shorthand, Texts, History
Doctor Thorne
The Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 3: Dr. Thorne
Mary Thorne, orphaned (and illegitimate) niece of Dr. Thorne, has long been a favorite at Greshamsbury House--until Lady Arabella Gresham learns that her only son Frank is in love with Mary. The unhappy Mary is banished forthwith, because the Gresham family fortunes are so depleted that Frank must marry money.
Frank, however, is one of the few…
Shares: Children of clergy, England in fiction, Clergy, History
Guilty as Sin
A cold-blooded kidnapper has been playing a twisted game with a terrified Minnesota town. Now a respected member of the community sits in jail, accused of a chilling act of evil. But then another boy disappears, triggering panic in tiny Deer Lake. Have the police caught the wrong man? ...
Shares: Abduction, Prisoners
Idylls of the King
The Idylls are a series of twelve long blank verse poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, telling the tale of Arthur and his round table. While some of them are stories of adventure and daring of the kind you’d expect from an Arthurian epic, many take on a darker tone, relating how Arthur was betrayed and how his kingdom grew decadent and eventually fell.The poems stand on their own as carefully…
Shares: Shorthand, Texts
Barchester Towers
The Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 2: Barchester Towers
Written as a sequel to "The Warden", this is the second book of the Barsetshire novels. Described as humorous, this wonderful novel that interweaves power, love, greed, and deceit in Barchester.
Barchester Towers (1857) is the second of the six Chronicles of Barsetshire, the work in which, after a ten-year apprenticeship, Trollope…
Shares: England in fiction, Clergy, British and irish fiction
The legacy of Cain
At the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not disown, I consent to look back through a long interval of years and to describe events which took place within the walls of an English prison during the earlier period of my appointment as Governor.
Shares: England in fiction, Clergy, British and irish fiction
Home
Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead. The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years…
Shares: Children of clergy, Clergy
Castle Rackrent
A politically-charged satire on Anglo-Irish landlords, Castle Rackrent is a critically-acclaimed and thoroughly enjoyable novel. The social commentary critiques not only class but also gender roles, acutely discussing the marginalization of women in the eighteenth century. In Castle Rackrent, published in 1800, the Irish Catholic bourgeoisie rise to power.
Shares: Poor families, British and irish fiction
Say Nothing
“Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book — as finely paced as a novel — Keefe uses McConville’s murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing,…
Shares: Abduction, History
The way of all flesh
I am the enfant terrible of literature and science. If I cannot, and I know I cannot, get the literary and scientific big-wigs to give me a shilling, I can, and I know I can, heave bricks into the middle of them.' With The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler threw a subversive brick at the smug face of Victorian domesticity. Published in 1903, a year after Butler's death, the novel is a thinly…
Shares: Children of clergy, British and irish fiction
The moon and sixpence
The Moon and Sixpence is a fictional novel heavily influenced by the life of French painter Paul Gauguin. The novel is told first-person, dipping episodically into the mind of the artist. Charles Strickland is an English stock broker, who leaves everything behind him in his middle age to live in defiant squalor in Paris as an artist. His genius is eventually recognized by a Dutch painter.
Shares: England in fiction, British and irish fiction
Maurice
Maurice is a novel by E. M. Forster. A tale of homosexual love in early 20th-century England, it follows Maurice Hall from his schooldays through university and beyond. It was written in 1913–1914, and revised in 1932 and 1959–1960.
Shares: England in fiction, British and irish fiction
Gilead
WINNER OF THE 2005 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames’s life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He “preached men into the Civil…
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Bible
The purpose of The Original African Heritage Study Bible is to interpret the Bible as it relates specifically to persons of African descent and thereby to foster an appreciation of the multiculturalism inherent in the Bible. The Original African Heritage Study Bible offers a number of unique features which reveal the African/Edenic contribution to Judaism and Christianity, including: 1)…
Shares: Texts, History
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. The novel-length version was published in April 1891.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Shares: Conduct of life, British and irish fiction, History
England, my England
A slim collection of short stories, written during the eight years or so previous to its publications date of 1922.
Shares: England in fiction, British and irish fiction
Murder on Black Swan Lane
The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, Londons most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, skewers them both.…
Shares: Clergy, History