Putting a Value on Eugène Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris.
The central plot-line… is that of a mystery-of-kinship story whose basic literary shape derives from the mystery-romances of Gothic and …
Category Archives: Literary Review
Am I a Liberal? (or, a Book Review of Adam Gopnik’s A Thousand Small Sanities).
Am I a liberal? This might sound like a peculiar question because surely everybody is these days. Even most self-proclaimed …
Book Review: The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies.
[In taking all of the quotes in this review from an e-book facsimile of The Secret Commonwealth, I have switched …
The Place of Bitters (Pique-Vinaigre) in The Mysteries of Paris.
[Here are some notes on the names that are used in this article.] Almost a thousand pages into his serialised …
Book Review: Dracul.
[The following contains spoilers.] You cannot understand Count Dracula without first getting the lie of the land. One of the …
How Best to Read Eugène Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris.
Eugène Sue’s crime novel The Mysteries of Paris was originally published in ninety instalments in the newspaper Journal des débats …
Short Story Review: The Bram Stoker Bedside Companion.
Count Dracula was the brainchild of the Irish writer Bram Stoker, who might seem to us today to be more …
Notes, Critical and Contextual, on RL Stevenson’s The Dynamiter: The Character of Prince Florizel.
INTRODUCTION. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. THE INFLUENCE OF SCHEHERAZADE. THE INFLUENCE OF SAMUEL SMILES’ SELF-HELP. …
The Retrial of Meursault.
[Scene: A swelteringly hot courtroom in Algeria. Three judges, two in black and the third in scarlet, enter the courtroom …
What does Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina mean?
[The following contains spoilers.] I never read graphic novels – there is enough on my plate already! – but I …
Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Dynamiter and The Puritan-Provincial Vision.
INTRODUCTION. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. THE INFLUENCE OF SCHEHERAZADE. THE INFLUENCE OF “SELF-HELP.“ “Robert Louis …
Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help versus Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Dynamiter.
INTRODUCTION. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. THE INFLUENCE OF SCHEHERAZADE. Had Samuel Smiles been ever asked …
Notes, Critical and Contextual, on RL Stevenson’s The Dynamiter: The Influence of Scheherazade.
INTRODUCTION. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. I have heard, O fortunate reader, that once the Sasanian …
Book Review: Go, Went, Gone.
[The following contains spoilers.] Jenny Erpenbeck‘s Go, Went, Gone was first published in 2015 and it appeared in English, translated …
Book Review: Who’s Your City?
[This is old material, being first published on Tychy in 2014 as part of a series on city states. For …
