William Shakespeare

The Shipwreck presents (with memories of William ShakespeareThe Tempest as well as Daniel DefoeRobinson Crusoe) a mother and daughter as castaways on an island: the mother emulates Crusoe in resourcefulness—until the discovery of male castaways gives...

AS says she began to write verse when I was introduced to Shakespeare and the English Romantics as a child, and was bewitched by the discovery of rhythm. She began at about twelve to...

EH seeks to raise the canonical status of the novel in this work not only by serious politico-philosophical content, but also by chapter-heading quotations from the classics (from Horace , Shakespeare , and Milton to...

The title is a near-quotation from Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night's Dream—the working man who is about to play the role of the lion promises not to frighten the ladies in the audience: I...

Jane, a widow whose only child is dead, decides to marry again, and picks the young Marquess of Montrath, heir to an earldom, whom she has first seen as a fellow visitor to the spunging-house...

Imagery of postpartum fluidity, particularly lactation, characterizes the lovers' growing passion and the descriptions of female sexual desire and orgasm. The narrative alternates between a schizoid third-person dialogue and first-person narration as Jane attempts...

She titled the volume from the words of Shakespeare 's character Macduff when he hears of the murder of his wife and children; this borrowing was suggested by James Wright . In the title...

In his absence Camilla recovers, and three years later marries another rake, Sir Lusignan Dellbury; when his former adoration is cooled by marriage, she turns to her children for emotional satisfaction. He insists on her...

The title-page quotation from Paradise Lost features the archangel Raphael's pronouncement that it is better for human beings to know That which before us lies in daily life than things remote. According to critic...

A preface (in the first volume) quotes the words of Samuel Johnson (with apology for applying them to so trifling a matter as novel-writing) about working at his dictionary amid grief and illness, feeling cut...

Pearl Richards (later JOH ) read widely as a child and adolescent, and her parents' liberal views (and considerable fortune) meant that she could pursue her tastes in both the lending libraries and the less...

Particular sketches include an allegory sent to Mary Leadbeater entitled The Birth of Calumny and the later Holland House, written in the person of the Ghost of La Bruyère. This, in a...

The narrative voice (a Scottish one, apparently as a kind of joke) is complex and shifting, with irony fed by unstable reference to the central couple (now Muriel and Henry, now Mother and Father, and...

At this point Gertrude hears a noise in her late husband's room; Ethelind sees a mysterious armed personage resembling him; Winifred sees a tall, white figure; Ormond offers to lie in wait for the ghost...

These letters show her to be a rewarding, informal, up-to-the-minute literary critic. She kept remarkably up to date on the topic of women's writing, showing herself consistently receptive to new styles and new ideas. She...