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A Suitable Boy
''A Suitable Boy'' is a novel by Vikram Seth, published in 1993. With 1,349 pages (1,488 pages in paperback), the English-language book is one of the longest novels published in a single volume. ''A Suitable Boy'' is set in a newly post-independence, post-partition India. The novel follows four families during 18 months, and centres on Mrs. Rupa Mehra's efforts to arrange the marriage of her younger daughter, Lata, to a "suitable boy". Lata is a 19-year-old university student who refuses to be influenced by her domineering mother or opinionated brother, Arun. Her story revolves around the choice she is forced to make between her suitors Kabir, Haresh, and Amit. It begins in the fictional town of Brahmpur, located along the Ganges. Patna, Brahmpur, along with Calcutta, Delhi, Lucknow and other Indian cities, forms a colourful backdrop for the emerging stories. The novel alternately offers satirical and earnest examinations of national political issues in the period leading up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian people, Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Vodafone Crossword Book Award, Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as ''Mappings (poetry), Mappings'' and ''Beastly Tales'' are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon. Early life and education Seth was born on 20 June 1952 in Calcutta. His father, Prem Nath Seth, was an executive of Bata Shoes and his mother, Leila Seth, a Barrister by training, became the first female judge of the Delhi High Court and first woman to become Chief justice of a state High Court in India. Seth was educated at the all-boys' private boarding school The Doon School in Dehradun, where he was editor-in-chief of ''The Doon School Weekly''. At Doon, he was influenced by his teacher, the mountaineer Gurdial Singh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jatav
Jatav, also known as Jatava/Jatan/ Jatua/Jhusia /Jatia/Jatiya, is an Indian Dalit community that are considered to be a subcaste of the Chamar caste, who are classified as a Scheduled Caste under modern India's system of positive discrimination. According to the 2011 Census of India, the Jatav community of Uttar Pradesh comprised 54% of that state's total 22,496,047 Scheduled Caste population. History Some Jatav authors have disputed being Scheduled. In the 1920s, Jatavs claimed to be survivors of the ancient war between Parashuram, the legend of the Brahmins, and Kshatriyas, forced into hiding. Their proof of ancestry is a series of correspondences or status similarities between Jatav and other Kshatriya clans. According to Owen Lynch, "These included identical gotras, and such Kshatriya-like ceremonies as shooting a cannon at weddings and the use of the bow and arrow at the birth saṃskāra".. According to M. P. S. Chandel In the early part of the 20th century, the Jat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling
''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', often known simply as ''Tom Jones'', is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is a ''Bildungsroman'' and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English works to be classified as a novel. It is the earliest novel mentioned by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1948 book ''Ten Novels and Their Authors, Great Novelists and Their Novels,'' in which Maugham ranks the ten best novels of the world. The novel is highly organised despite its length. Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued that it has one of the "three most perfect plots ever planned", alongside ''Oedipus Rex, Oedipus Tyrannus'' by Sophocles and ''The Alchemist (play), The Alchemist'' by Ben Jonson. It became a best-seller, with four editions published in its first year alone. It is generally regarded as Fielding's greatest book and as an influential English novel. Plot The wealthy Squire Allworthy and his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along with Samuel Richardson, Fielding is seen as the founder of the traditional English novel. He also played an important role in the history of law enforcement in the United Kingdom, using his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first professional Police, police force. Early life Henry Fielding was born on 22 April 1707 at Sharpham Park, the seat of his mother's family in Sharpham, Somerset. He was the son of Lt.-Gen. Edmund Fielding and Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry Gould. A scion of the Earl of Denbigh, his father was nephew of William Fielding, 3rd Earl of Denbigh. Educated at Eton College, Fielding began a lifelong friendship with William Pitt the Elder. His mother died when he was 11. A suit for custod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanity Fair (novel)
''Vanity Fair'' is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray, which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial novel, serial (the last containing Parts 19 ''and'' 20) from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle ''Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society'', which reflects both its satire, satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle ''A Novel without a Hero'', reflecting Thackeray's interest in Deconstruction (literature), deconstructing his era's conventions regarding Hero#Modern fiction, literary heroism.. It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel. The story is frame story, framed as a puppet play, and the narrator, despite being an authorial voice, is somewha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray ( ; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist and illustrator. He is known for his Satire, satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 novel ''Vanity Fair (novel), Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel ''The Luck of Barry Lyndon'', which was Barry Lyndon, adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick. Thackeray was born in Calcutta, British India, and was sent to England after his father's death in 1815. He studied at various schools and briefly attended Trinity College, Cambridge, before leaving to travel Europe. Thackeray squandered much of his inheritance on gambling and unsuccessful newspapers. He turned to journalism to support his family, primarily working for ''Fraser's Magazine'', ''The Times'', and ''Punch (magazine), Punch''. His wife Isabella suffered from mental illness. Thackeray gained fame with his novel ''Vanity Fair'' and produced several other notable works. He unsuccessfully ran f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bleak House
''Bleak House'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode Serial (literature), serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of ''Bleak House'' is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, ''Jarndyce and Jarndyce'', which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably ''Thellusson v Woodford'', in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, ''Bleak House'' helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of Judicature Acts, legal reform in the 1870s. Some scholars debate when ''Ble ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father John Dickens, John was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed Penny reading, readings extensively; was a tireless letter writer; and campaigned vigor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middlemarch
''Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life'' is a novel by English author George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. It appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, in 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Leavened with comic elements, ''Middlemarch'' approaches significant historical events in a Literary realism, realist mode: the Reform Act 1832, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change. Eliot began writing the two pieces that formed the novel in 1869–1870 and completed it in 1871. Initial reviews were mixed, but it is now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels. Background ''Middlemarch'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: ''Adam Bede'' (1859), ''The Mill on the Floss'' (1860), ''Silas Marner'' (1861), ''Romola'' (1862–1863), ''Felix Holt, the Radical'' (1866), ''Middlemarch'' (1871–1872) and ''Daniel Deronda'' (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their literary realism, realism, psychological fiction, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. ''Middlemarch'' was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people"Woolf, Virginia. "George Eliot." ''The Common Reader''. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1925. pp. 166–176. and by Martin Amis an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War And Peace
''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was rewritten and published in 1869. It is regarded, with '' Anna Karenina'', as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, and it remains an internationally praised classic of world literature. The book chronicles the French invasion of Russia and its aftermath during the Napoleonic era. It uses five interlocking narratives following different Russian aristocratic families to illustrate Napoleon's impact on Tsarist society. Portions of an earlier version, titled ''The Year 1805'', were serialized in '' The Russian Messenger'' from 1865 to 1867 before the novel was published in its entirety in 1869.Knowles, A. V. ''Leo Tolstoy'', Routledge 1997. Tolstoy sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution reform, pre-reform Russian orthography. ; ), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic family, Tolstoy achieved acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, ''Childhood (Tolstoy novel), Childhood'', ''Boyhood (novel), Boyhood'' and ''Youth (Tolstoy novel), Youth'' (1852–1856), and with ''Sevastopol Sketches'' (1855), based on his experiences in the Crimean War. His ''War and Peace'' (1869), ''Anna Karenina'' (1878), and ''Resurrection (Tolstoy novel), Resurrection'' (1899), which is based on his youthful sins, are often cited as pinnacles of Literary realism, realist fiction and three of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
