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Literature by Place

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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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Readers #19
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen
1956 printing from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Robin Hood
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Paul Creswick, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth
1991 Edition from Reader's Digest
for 6th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (3 in stock)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel
from Macmillan
Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Ambassadors
by Henry James
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
American Claimant / Pudd'nhead Wilson
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Annotated Alice
by Lewis Carroll
from Bramhall House
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
At Bertram's Hotel
A Miss Marple Mystery #10
by Agatha Christie
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
August 1914
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (2 in stock)
Beau Geste
by Percival Christopher Wren
from Reader's Digest
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Beejum Book
by Alice O. Howell
Revised
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Bonfire of the Vanities
by Tom Wolfe
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Bridges of Madison County
by Robert James Waller
First. from Warner Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk, illustrated by John Thompson
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
from Gramercy Books
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
David Copperfield
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Charles Dickens
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Deerslayer
Leatherstocking Tales #1
by James Fenimore Cooper, illustrated by Louis Rhead & Frank Schoonover
from Blue Ribbon Books, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
Eclectic English Classics
by Daniel Defoe, edited by Kate Stephens
from American Book Co.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
ECL: Call of the Wild
Educator Classic Library #11
by Jack London, illustrated by Ron King
Complete and Unabridged Edition from Classic Press
Action/Adventure for 7th-10th grade
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Endless Knot
by Stephen Lawhead
1st edition from Chariot Victor Publishing
for 9th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
from Popular Publishing
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Eugenie Grandet
by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage, introduction by Richard Aldington, illustrations by Rene ben Sussan
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Far Lands
by James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Fathers and Sons
by Ivan Turgenev
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Fighting Littles
by Booth Tarkington
1st edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Full Cupboard of Life
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5
by Alexander McCall Smith
1st edition from Pantheon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Gilded Age
by Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
3rd printing from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Great Lion of God
by Taylor Caldwell
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Gulliver's Travels
Windermere Readers #15
by Jonathan Swift, illustrated by Milo Winter
1954 Edition from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$9.00 (2 in stock)
Hound of the Baskervilles
Oxford Children's Classics
by Arthur Conan Doyle
from Oxford University
for 7th-Adult
in Mystery & Suspense (Location: FIC-MYS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
In His Steps
by Charles Monroe Sheldon
from Hendrickson Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
In the Beginning
by Chaim Potok
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #6
by Alexander McCall Smith
First American Edition from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
In This Mountain
Mitford Years Book 7
by Jan Karon
from Viking Press
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Invisible Man & Island of Dr. Moreau
by H.G. Wells
from Reader's Digest
for 10th grade-adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Jim the Boy
by Tony Earley
1st edition from Back Bay Books
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Jules Verne
from Reader's Digest
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
from Harcourt
Fantasy for 3rd-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Lost in a Good Book
Thursday Next Book 2
by Jasper Fforde
First American Edition from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Francis Steegmuller and illustrated by Honore Daumier
from Random House
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.10 (1 in stock)
Moon and Sixpence
Modern Library
by W. Somerset Maugham
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
from Del Rey
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
A Hercule Poirot Mystery #4
by Agatha Christie
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
My Cousin Rachel
by Daphne du Maurier
from Doubleday & Company
Mystery/Suspense for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
My Name is Aram
by William Saroyan
from Harcourt
for Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Old Curiosity Shop
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Charles Dickens
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Old Curiosity Shop
by Charles Dickens, with original illustrations and an introduction by Andrew Lang
from Book-of-the-Month Club
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Penrod
by Booth Tarkington, illustrated by Gordon Grant
from Grosset & Dunlap
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Prince and the Pauper
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Frank Merrill
from Reader's Digest
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Quiet American
by Graham Greene
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Rabble in Arms
by Kenneth Roberts
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Ramona
by Helen Jackson
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Red and the Black (Abridged)
International Collector's Library
by Stendhal
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Restaurant At the End of the Universe
Hitchhiker's Trilogy #2
by Douglas Adams
Book Club Edition from Harmony
Humorous Science Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by Edward A. Wilson
from Heritage Press
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
Robinson Crusoe
Windermere Readers #14
by Daniel Defoe, frontispiece by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
Robinson Crusoe
Focus on the Family's Classic Collection
by Daniel Defoe, Introduction and Afterword by Joe L. Wheeler
from Focus on the Family
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Robinson Crusoe (abridged)
by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by Frank Godwin
from John C. Winston
for 5th-8th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
Rumpole and the Primrose Path
by John Mortimer
from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.50 (1 in stock)
Saul Bellow: Novels 1944-1953
by Saul Bellow
from Library of America
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Scarlet
by Stephen R. Lawhead
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Hitchhiker's Trilogy #4
by Douglas Adams
from Crown Publishers
Humorous Science Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Tale of Two Cities (adapted)
by Charles Dickens, adapted by Grace A. Benscotter & Merrill Howe and illustrated by Bernice Oehler
1923 printing from Longmans, Green & Co.
Victorian Novel for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
The Hurricane
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
The Robe
by Lloyd C. Douglas
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$15.00 (2 in stock)
Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
First Ed from Riverhead Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Three Musketeers
Windermere Readers #20
by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen
1954 Edition from Rand McNally
Historical Fiction/Adventure for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$9.00 (2 in stock)
Tom Sawyer Abroad and Other Stories
by Mark Twain
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Tortilla Flat
by John Steinbeck; illustrated Ruth Chrisman Gannett
from Collier Books
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Treasure Island
Windermere Readers #16
by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Milo Winter
1954 Edition from Rand McNally
for 5th-10th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$9.00 (2 in stock)
Under the Eye of the Storm
by John Hersey
Book Club Edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray
from Easton Press
for 10th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Virginian
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Owen Wister
1st edition from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
War and Remembrance
by Herman Wouk
1st Trade Ed from Little, Brown & Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Yearling
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings & N. C. Wyeth
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00 (1 in stock)
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