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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19th Century Literature,

9th grade (Ages 14-15),

Used Books & Materials

	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 2019 Reprint from SeaWolf Press for 7th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Macmillan Classics 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)
	Autobiography of Charles G. Finney by Charles G. Finney from Bethany House Autobiography for 9th-Adult in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Black Arrow Dover Evergreen Classics by Robert Louis Stevenson from Dover Publications Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm, Josef Scharl from Pantheon Books for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand from Bantam Books Drama for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.99 $2.50 (1 in stock)
	Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, translated by Brian Hooker 1963 Reprint from Heinemann Educational Books Drama for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $2.50 (1 in stock)
	Emma by Jane Austen, illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat with an inroduction by Deirdre Le Faye from The Folio Society Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-12th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $75.00 (1 in stock)
	Faust: A Tragedy Parts One and Two, Fully Revised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Translated by Martin Greenberg from Yale University Press for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $10.00 (1 in stock)
	Importance of Being Earnest Dover Thrift Editions by Oscar Wilde from Dover Publications Drama/Comedy for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.00 $2.00 (1 in stock)
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
	Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, with an introduction by W. Warren Wagar and an afterword by Scott Westerfeld from Signet Classics Science Fiction for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.00 (2 in stock)
	Kidnapped Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 Scribner Illustrated Classics by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth from Atheneum Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV) $14.50 (1 in stock)
	Kidnapped Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth and Graham Oakley from Dilithium Press, Ltd. Historical Fiction for 7th-10th grade in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	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) $4.80 (1 in stock)
	Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon Penguin Classics by Jane Austen from Penguin Classics Realistic fiction for 8th-12th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $11.00 $6.00 (2 in stock)
	Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories Reader's Digest World's Best Reading by Washington Irving from Reader's Digest for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Life on the Mississippi Signet Classics by Mark Twain from Harper & Brothers Autobiography for 9th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $9.00 (1 in stock)
	Mansfield Park Vintage Classics by Jane Austen from Vintage Books Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-12th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 (1 in stock)
	Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth from Charles Scribner's Sons Science Fiction for 8th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $20.00 (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 (1 in stock)
	Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat with an inroduction by Deirdre Le Faye from The Folio Society Romantic Realistic Fiction for 8th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $95.00 (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)
	Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward FitzGerald and illustrated by J. Watson Davis from A. L. Burt Company for 9th-Adult in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Self-Reliance and Other Essays Dover Thrift Editions by Ralph Waldo Emerson from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 $3.50 (2 in stock)
	Shelley's Poetry and Prose Norton Critical Edition by Percy Bysshe Shelley 2^nd edition from W. W. Norton and Co. for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $16.50 (1 in stock)
	Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman, illustrated by Charles Mozley from Franklin Watts for 7th-12th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	Shropshire Lad The Living Library by A. E. Housman, Illustrated by Jeanne Edwards from World Publishing Company for 7th-12th grade in Vintage Poetry (Location: VIN-POET) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Study in Scarlet & The Sign of Four Dover Thrift Editions by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from Dover Publications Mystery for 8th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Tale of Two Cities Dover Thrift Editions by Charles Dickens from Dover Publications Victorian Novel for 8th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving 3^rd edition from Club Everest for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving from Living Book Press for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $13.99 $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Time Machine by H. G. Wells from Dover Publications for 7th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $2.00 (1 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)
	Treasure Island by Sir Robert Louis Stevenson from Signet Classics for 6th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.00 (4 in stock)
	Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup from Graymalkin Media for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.00 (1 in stock)
	When I Was a Slave Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection Dover Thrift Editions by Norman Yetman (editor) from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
	Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë from Bantam Books for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.00 (1 in stock)

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