ANGLO AMERICAN

LITERARY PERIOD
NOTABLE LITERARY WORKS
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
by J.D. Salinger
• J.D. Salinger's classic novel of teenage angst and
rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel
was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best
English-language novels written since 1923. It
was named by Modern Library and its readers
as one of the 100 best English-language novels
of the 20th century. It has been frequently
challenged in the court for its liberal use of
profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the
1950's and 60's it was the novel that every
teenage boy wants to read.
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THE GREAT GATSBY
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The book stands as the supreme achievement of
Fitzgerald’s career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz
Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The
story is of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his
new love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish
parties on Long Island at a time when The New York
Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the
national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of
America in the 1920s.
• The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of
twentieth-century literature.

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ROMEO AND JULIET
by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet, play by William Shakespeare, written
about 1594–96 and first published in an unauthorized
quarto in 1597. An authorized quarto appeared in 1599,
substantially longer and more reliable. A third quarto,
based on the second, was used by the editors of the First
Folio of 1623. The characters of Romeo and Juliet have
been depicted in literature, music, dance, and theatre. The
appeal of the young hero and heroine—whose families,
the Montagues and the Capulets, respectively, are
implacable enemies—is such that they have become, in
the popular imagination, the representative type of star-
crossed lovers.
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FRANKENSTEIN
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a
cautionary tale about the dangers of science,
Frankenstein tells the story of committed science
student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with
discovering the cause of generation and life and
bestowing animation upon lifeless matter,
Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen
body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in
horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by
isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature
turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous
revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.
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BELOVED
by Toni Morrison
•Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of
slavery, this spellbinding novel
transforms history into a story as
powerful as Exodus and as intimate as
a lullaby.
•Filled with bitter poetry and suspense
as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering
achievement by Nobel Prize laureate
Toni Morrison.
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THE CANTERBURY TALES
by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1345–1400)
was enormously popular in medieval England, with over
90 copies in existence from the 1400s.
• Its popularity may be due to the fact that the tales were
written in Middle English, a language that developed
after the Norman invasion, after which those in power
would have spoken French. Continuous publication of The
Canterbury Tales since Chaucer's death, and the inspiration
it has provided for other writers and artists, are testimony
to the enduring appeal of his characters and their stories:
proof that people's hopes and fears – and the English
sense of humour – are little changed by six centuries of
history.

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THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS AND WHAT
ALICE FOUND THERE
by Lewis Carroll
• In 1865, English author Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll,
wrote a fantastical adventure story for the
young daughters of a friend. The adventures of
Alice-named for one of the little girls to whom
the book was dedicated-who journeys down a
rabbit hole and into a whimsical underworld
realm instantly struck a chord with the British
public, and then with readers around the
world.
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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
by Harper Lee
• The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy
Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked
it, To Kill a Mockingbird became both an instant
bestseller and a critical success when it was first
published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize
in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-
winning film, also a classic, compassionate, dramatic,
and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes
readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence
and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred,
humor and pathos. Today it is regarded as a
masterpiece of American literature.
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THE CANTERVILLE GHOST
by Oscar Wilde
• This is Oscar Wilde's tale of the American
family moved into a British mansion,
Canterville Chase, much to the annoyance
of its tired ghost. The family - which
refuses to believe in him - is in Wilde's
way a commentary on the British nobility
of the day - and on the Americans, too.
The tale, like many of Wilde's, is rich with
allusion, but ends as sentimental
romance.
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GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
by Jonathan Swift
• Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes
to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by
little people, whose height makes their quarrels
over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His
subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of
Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and
the brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter
insights into human behavior. Swift's savage satire
view mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a
diminished, magnified and finally bestial species,
presenting us with an uncompromising reflection
of ourselves.
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 SALOMÉ
by Oscar Wilde
• Written originally in French in 1892, this sinister tale of
a woman scorned and her vengeance was translated
into English by Lord Alfred Douglas. The play inspired
some of Aubrey Beardsley's finest illustrations, and an
abridged version served as the text for Strauss'
renowned opera of the same name. This volume
reprints the complete text of the first English edition,
published in 1894, and also includes "A Note on Salomé"
by Robert Ross, Wilde's lifelong friend and literary
executor. Students, lovers of literature and drama, and
admirers of Oscar Wilde and his remarkable literary
gifts will rejoice in this inexpensive edition.
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REBECCA
by Daphne du Maurier
• The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our
heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing
widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden
proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working
as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her
luck. It is only when they arrive at his
massive country estate that she realizes how
large a shadow his late wife will cast over
their lives--presenting her with a lingering
evil that threatens to destroy their marriage
from beyond13
the grave.
MOBY-DICK, OR, THE WHALE
by Herman Melville
• So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the
greatest works of imagination in literary history. In
part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling
madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature
as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea
itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more
than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend,
the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong
meditation on America. Written with wonderfully
redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is also a profound
inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of
perception.
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TWILIGHT
by Stephenie Meyer

•A novel that tells the story of Bella

Swan, a normal 17-year-old girl who
falls in love with a vampire, Edward
Cullen.

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GAME OF THRONES
by Sir George R. R. Martin
• It is a high fantasy novel set in medieval
times. It tells of the noble Stark family
with conspiracy and court politics in the
Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with
emphasis on Eddard Stark, the exiled
princess Daenerys and his illegitimate
son Jon Snox. It deals with the
conflicting demands of duty and love,
the corrupt nature of politics and the
necessity of facing hard truths.
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NEVER LET ME GO
by Kazuo Ishiguro
•It is an emotional and intense novel
that presents a dystopian society
wherein humans are being stripped
of their identity and labeled as mere
copies and focuses on humanity's
attempt to escape from this future
when Kathy and Tommy desperately
search for a deferral. It focuses on the
search for identity.
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BEFORE I FALL
by Lauren Oliver
•The novel begins when Samantha
Kingston is killed in a car accident.
However, she wakes up the following
morning with the memory of her
demise still fresh in mind. For some
reason, she is fated to relive the last
day of her life over and over, until
she gets things right. It deals with
authority roles and Christian beliefs.
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