classic tagged posts

Adam Bede—buy it
by George Eliot—wiki her
Recommended Ages: 13+

In the imaginary village of Hayslope, on the frontier between the nonexistent English counties of Loamshire and Stonyshire, round about the year 1799, a strong, manly carpenter named Adam Bede lives with his doting mother (who becomes a widow in an early chapter) and his gentle, sensitive brother Seth. The brothers love the two pretty nieces of a prosperous farmer and his wife who live nearby. Adam’s intended is a vain, saucy, but irresistibly pretty little thing named Hetty Sorrel; the girl Seth wants to marry is a tender, modestly beautiful Methodist lay preacher named Dinah Morris. But (SPOILER ALERT!) Dinah would rather have Adam than Seth; and as for Hetty, she fancies the young heir of the local squire, Arthur Donnithorne by name, and he fancies her too—though the wide difference between their stations in life mean that he can never do the honorable thing by her.

And so the stage is set for a novel that mixes u...

Tanglewood Tales—buy the paperback—free Kindle book
by Nathaniel Hawthorne—wiki him
Recommended Ages: 11+

You may have heard of the Tanglewood Music Festival in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. This festival is named after the mansion where the festival is held. The mansion was named after the nearby cottage where Nathaniel Hawthorne stayed while writing this book. And the cottage, according to my sources, was named after this book—a sequel to the same author’s A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. Houston, Texas, has a neighborhood named after this book, and the state of Washington has an island ditto. These facts illustrate the love in which this book was once popularly held, and the influence of some of the people who loved it so.

And yet I would bet you’re hearing about this book for the first time now. Here some writers would say, “So goes the world,” and let it be. But I say it need not be so...

The Rose and the Ring—read it online
by William Makepeace Thackeray—wiki him
Recommended Ages: 10+

This hilarious fairy-tale spoof was written as a “fireside pantomime,” to amuse a group of English children between Christmas and New Year while staying in an unnamed European city. Moreover, it was published under the pseudonym “Michael Angelo Titmarsh,” if you please. Today’s American children might not understand what’s so funny about that name, let alone what a pantomime is or why it’s remarkable to find the author of such big-boned books as The Luck of Barry Lyndon and Vanity Fair chronicling the romantic tomfoolery of the Princesses Angelica and Rosalba, and the Princes Bulbo and Giglio. But that won’t stop them from giggling in all the right places.

These royal sillies dwell in the imaginary countries of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary...

The Face in the Frost—buy it
by John Bellairs
Recommended Ages: 12+

John Bellairs (1938-91) specialized in writing spooky tales of the mysterious and macabre for younger readers. One of the most mysterious and macabre things about him is the fact that he went on writing them after his death. It turns out that four of his books were completed by Brad Strickland based on sketches left unrealized at the author’s death; Strickland then went on to write at least nine more books based on characters Bellairs created. This accounts for the strange fact that 31 novels are listed on Bellairs’s bibliography, though he only lived to write 18 of them. There may be more pseudo-Bellairs spookiness to come, including a film franchise. Is this a good thing? I suppose the jury is out. Some fans of Bellairs may appreciate the chance to see his work continue, compensating in some degree for his untimely loss...