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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	Apologia Pro Vita Sua Dover Giant Thrift Editions by John Henry Newman from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00
	Autobiography of Charles G. Finney The Life Story of America's Greatest Evangelist - In his own words by Charles G. Finney from Bethany House Autobiography for 9th-Adult in Biographies (Location: BIO) $18.00
	Autobiography of Charles G. Finney by Charles G. Finney from Bethany House Autobiography for 9th-Adult in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Ben-Hur Dover Thrift Editions by Lew Wallace from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00
	Ben-Hur A Tale of the Christ Signet Classics by Lew Wallace from Signet Classics Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $9.95
	Ben-Hur Dover Thrift Editions by Lew Wallace from HarperCollins for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $16.99
	Brothers Karamazov Signet Classics by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, edited with an introduction by Manual Komroff from Signet Classics Russian Epic Novel for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.95
	Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translation by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) Bicentennial from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 11th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $19.00
	Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti by Christina Rossetti from Penguin Classics for 10th-Adult in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN) $22.00
	Crime and Punishment Signet Classics by Fyodor Dostoyevsky from Signet Classics Realistic Russian Novel for 11th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.95
	Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translation by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) Reprint from Vintage Classics for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $18.00
	Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, unknown translator from Wordsworth Classics for 11th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN) $4.00
	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)
	Ivanhoe Signet Classics by Sir Walter Scott from Signet Classics Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.95
	Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott from Dover Publications Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.95
	Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover 200th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $14.95
	Ivanhoe Penguin Classics by Sir Walter Scott, edited by Graham Tulloch from Penguin Classics Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $13.00
	John Ploughman's Talk Or, Plain Advice for Plain People by Charles Haddon Spurgeon from Wipf and Stock Publishers Christian Living for 10th-Adult in Practical Christian Living (Location: XCL-PRAC) $15.00
	Lady of the Lake The Students' Series of English Classics by Sir Walter Scott, edited with introduction and notes by James Arthur Tufts from Leach, Shewell & Sanborn for 9th-Adult in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET) $4.50 (1 in stock)
	Life of Our Lord Written for His Children During the Years 1846 to 1849 by Charles Dickens from Simon and Schuster for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $16.00
	Lorna Doone A Romance of Exmoor by R. D. Blackmore from Oxford University Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $13.95
	Major Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins by Gerard Manley Hopkins from Oxford University for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $15.95
	Mimosa by Amy Carmichael from Christian Literature Crusade for 9th-Adult in History of Missions (Location: XCH-MIS) $11.99
	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Dover Thrift Editions by Frederick Douglass from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.50
	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Copper Lodge Library by Frederick Douglass, annotated by Stephanie B. Meter from Classical Conversations for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $12.00
	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Frederick Douglass & Harriet Jacobs from Modern Library for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.95
	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass from Signet Classics for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.95 $3.50 (2 in stock)
	Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky from Vintage Books for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $14.00
	Notes from Underground and The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky from Penguin Putnam for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $14.00
	On Slavery and the Civil War Selections from His Writings Dover Thrift Editions by Frederick Douglass from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $2.00
	Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by W. S. Kuniczak from Hippocrene Books Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $24.95
	Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by Jeremiah Curtin from Dover Publications Historical Fiction for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $14.95
	Rob Roy Penguin Classics by Sir Walter Scott from Penguin Classics Historical Fiction for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $15.00
	The Idiot Signet Classics by Fyodor Dostoyevsky from Signet Classics Realistic Russian Novel for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.95
	Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome from Dover Publications for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome from Penguin Classics for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $13.00
	Waverley Penguin Classics by Sir Walter Scott from Penguin Classics Historical Fiction for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $16.00

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