1911: Ethan Frome to Zuleika Dobson.

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Edith Wharton. American. 1911. Novel. Ethan Frome. Typical New England village. Ethan vs. hypochondriac wife. He loves her cousin. They try suicide. Fail. They become invalids and the roles are reversed.

Leo Tolstoy. Russian. 1911. Novel. Hadzhi Murad. Cossack uprising. Leader deserts, then returns to his people, knowing they will kill him.

Theodore Dreiser. American. 191. Novel. Jennie Gerhardt. A patient Griselda. Much misused. Patient acceptance.

Hugh Walpole. British. 1911. Novel. Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill. English boys’ boarding school: inbred, tense lives of the teachers.

H. G. Wells. British. 1911. Novel. The New Machiavelli. Handbook of English political life on the eve of WWI.

Joseph Conrad. British. 1911. Novel. Under Western Eyes. Nineteenth-century Russian police state and extremist revolutionaries. Betrays fellow student who has assassinated an official. Falls in love with his sister. Confesses truth to the revolutionaries and is brutally beaten, left for dead. Returns to Russia. “Western eyes” are those of the English man who reads and comments on his diary.

Max Beerbohm. British. 1911. Novel. Zuleika Dobson. Fantastic, satirical novel. Oxford undergrads drown themselves for love of a beautiful young woman.