TV Review: Martin’s Close.
“A Ghost Story for Christmas” is not merely a minor subgenre of the BBC’s drama output. It is in fact …
Tag Archives: Literary criticism
Christmas with Washington Irving.
Today the Christmas material in Washington Irving’s The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20) encompasses a jovial and expansive midsection …
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 …
One Great Man On Another.
“This is the dilemma that confronts partisans of resentment: either they must deny Shakespeare’s unique eminence (a painful and difficult …
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 …
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 …
Notes, Critical and Contextual, on RL Stevenson’s The Dynamiter: The Influence of the One Thousand and One Nights.
INTRODUCTION. When writing to his cousin and near namesake Bob Stevenson in 1882, Robert Louis Stevenson reminisced about how they …
