Literature by Place - Exodus Books

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It's kind of crazy to what extent geography can inform an author's work. Jack London spent most of his life at sea, dog-sledding across Alaska, boxing and generally being an adventurous guy who would put today's REI crowd to shame. Would he have penned some of the greatest American novels otherwise? especially ones concerned primarily with man battling the elements for survival in both a mental and physical sense? Very probably not, which explains why Oscar Wilde didn't write about wolves and crazy ship captains.

No, Oscar Wilde wrote primarily about fops and society people parrying witticisms incessantly. That's not to say his work has no place in a serious consideration of literature—au contraire, The Picture of Dorian Grey is one of the finest novels written in English. It's just more evidence that if you're an author who lives in the Canadian mountains or the clubs of London, your writing will reflect that.

Physical terrain isn't the only consideration. Sartre wrote about people lolling about with no real sense of purpose except to drink wine and smoke cigarettes and look languorous because he lived in France in the 1940s. Friedrich Nietzsche had immense mustaches and espoused a form of nihilism because he was German. The Russians wrote impossibly long novels because they lived in Russia. And Chinua Achebe was almost entirely influenced by his African upbringing.

That's not to say no one can write well about a context they haven't experienced firsthand. I'm pretty sure Robert Heinlein never visited Mars, and even if he did it wasn't as his books describe; the same goes for Bradbury. And no, Roald Dahl was never lost in a delightfully (though at times, terrifyingly) absurd chocolate factory. Yet even with these examples, the authors conveyed essentially the attitudes of the countries they came from—Heinlein and Bradbury from the U.S., Dahl from the U.K.

Our Literature by Place subcategories are admittedly Anglo-centric. North American literature features, well, American literature, and you can be pretty sure British literature reflects the same system; everything else goes in world literature. We have plenty of non-American or -British literature, we just don't have much from any one place besides those two. At any rate, we hope these categories are helpful, and if they guide you toward one book you're looking for (or maybe one you didn't even know existed), they've done their job.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

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Renaissance & Reformation Literature,

Mass market paperback

	All's Well That Ends Well Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.49
	All's Well that Ends Well by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th grade-adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.50
	Antony and Cleopatra Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Historical Tragedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00
	As You Like It Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Comedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.00
	As You Like It by William Shakespeare from Oxford University for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $9.95
	As You Like It Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $9.99
	Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th grade-adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Comedy Of Errors Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.49
	Complete Sonnets Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Lyrical Poetry for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.50 $2.00 (2 in stock)
	Faerie Queene Penguin Classics by Edmund Spenser from Penguin Classics Allegory/Epic Poetry for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $22.00
	Hamlet The Pelican Shakespeare by William Shakespeare from Penguin Putnam Tragedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $2.50 (1 in stock)
	Hamlet Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00
	Henry IV, Part I Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Henry V by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Historical Drama for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00
	In Praise of Folly Dover Thrift Editions by Desiderius Erasmus from Dover Publications Religious Satire for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Julius Caesar Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Historical Tragedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00
	Julius Caesar Barron's Shakespeare Made Easy by William Shakespeare 1st U.S. from Barron's Historical Tragedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Julius Caesar Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Simon and Schuster for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $9.99
	King John and Henry VIII by William Shakespeare from Bantam Books Historical Drama for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.99 $3.00 (2 in stock)
	King Lear Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Tragedy for Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $6.00
	King Lear Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.24
	Love's Labour's Lost Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Macbeth Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Simon and Schuster for 9th-12th grade in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.50 (1 in stock)
	Macbeth by William Shakespeare from Barron's for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.50 (1 in stock)
	Macbeth Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.00
	Macbeth (Dover Study) Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.50 (1 in stock)
	Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses by Martin Luther from P&R Publishing for 7th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Measure for Measure Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.49
	Merchant of Venice Signet Classic by William Shakespeare, Edited by Kenneth Myrick from Penguin Putnam for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Much Ado About Nothing Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Comedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Othello Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Prince, The Dover Thrift Editions by Niccolo Machiavelli from Dover Publications Political Philosophy for 11th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00
	Richard III No Fear Shakespeare by William Shakespeare from Sparknotes for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Romeo and Juliet Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Romeo and Juliet Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare Made Easy by William Shakespeare from Barron's for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $6.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
	Romeo and Juliet Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $9.99
	Taming of the Shrew Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Elizabethan Drama for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $4.00 $1.00 (28 in stock)
	Taming of the Shrew Barron's Shakespeare Made Easy by William Shakespeare from Barron's Comedy for 9th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Tempest Folger Shakespeare Library by William Shakespeare from Washington Square Press for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
	Twelfth Night or, What You Will Dover Thrift Editions by William Shakespeare from Dover Publications Comedy for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $3.00
	Utopia Dover Thrift Editions by Sir Thomas More from Dover Publications Utopian/Dystopian Literature for 10th-Adult in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN) $5.00

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