Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life by Gustave Flaubert; translated by Francis Steegmuller. Recommended. Surprisingly, Madame Bovary begins with a look at the painful childhood of the seemingly dull and plodding man who will become the title character’s longsuffering husband, Charles Bovary. The novel … Continue reading →
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York by Stephen Crane. Edited with an introduction by Larzer Ziff with the assistance of Theo Davis. Recommended. If Edith Wharton captures the snobbery, superficiality, hypocrisy, materialism, and coldness of New … Continue reading →
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, edited by James Kinsley and with an introduction and notes by Jane Stabler. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2003. 480 pages. In Mansfield Park, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women … Continue reading →
Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life by Elizabeth Gaskell. Edited with an introduction and notes by Shirley Foster. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006. 480 pages. A tale of Manchester working life set in the 1830s, Mary Barton begins as bucolically as … Continue reading →
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. Not recommended. Master and Commander is the first in a series of Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels, this one set in the early 1800s. After meeting Dr. Maturin at a concert by annoying him, Aubrey learns he has … Continue reading →
Memoir from Antproof Case: A Novel by Mark Helprin. Recommended. Like Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case is difficult to classify (although Helprin helpfully gives it the subtitle A Novel). It has elements of magical surrealism, but falls short on magic. … Continue reading →
Middlemarch by George Eliot. Highly recommended. It seems that it’s nearly impossible to talk about Middlemarch without mentioning its breadth and scope. The irony is that the entire novel takes place within the confines of this small community and within … Continue reading →
Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West. Highly recommended. Miss Lonelyhearts, set on the East Coast in New York City, and The Day of the Locust, set on the West Coast in Hollywood, are the two grim but brilliant gems of … Continue reading →
Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy by Howard Jones. Not recommended. In July 1839, a group of Africans that had been illegally imported into Cuba used violence to take … Continue reading →
My Ántonia by Willa Cather. Recommended. Willa Cather is known as the chronicler of the American prairie and frontier, having written such novels as O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. My Ántonia is … Continue reading →