Criticism

Essays and books about fiction and the interpretation of fiction.

The Homiletics of Criticism: H.L. Mencken
What is literary criticism, in plain words? What is its aim, exactly stated in legal terms? How far can it go?
Great Expectations Reviewed: Anonymous
It has been said nobody ever wrote a perfect novel, except Charles Dickens.
The New Face of Fiction: Jon Spayde
Novelists who are changing the way we see the world.
The Story of Uncle Tom's Cabin: Charles Dudley Warner
Was this book merely an abolition pamphlet, or was it one of the few great masterpieces of fiction that the world has produced?
Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Sibyl: Harriet Beecher Stowe
I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman.
William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech: William Faulkner
The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing.
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses: In 1895, Mark Twain published his acerbic criticism of James Fenimore Cooper. In his essay The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper, Twain asserted Cooper's popular Deerslayer, a Leatherstocking tale, committed 114 "offenses against literary art out of a possible 115."

Fiction