Often cited as one of the first English-language novels—although this depends on your definition of the term—Samuel Richardson's scandalous Pamela was a phenomenon on first publication in 1740. In it, a teenage housemaid resists the advances of the master of her household until, ultimately, he agrees to marry her. It is presented, initially, as a series of letters from Pamela to her parents; the second part of the book is written in the form of a journal, also addressed to her parents. The (at that time, groundbreaking) format allowed Richardson to offer insight into his protagonist's state of mind and mode of thought.
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“Napoleon was an admirer in particular of the most widely read of Goethe’s four novels: The Sufferings of Young Werther (1774). This is a novel that comes out of and transforms the epistolary sentimental novel tradition. Goethe comes along and writes an incredibly thin and powerful novel. It’s just one writer sending letters of vibrant intimacy that take his character through a failed love into suicide. Napoleon was gripped by that; I think he claimed to have read it thirteen times.” Read more...
The Best Goethe Books
David E. Wellbery ,
Literary Scholar
“I like to read Dracula as one of the great novels of London. Stoker himself was an Irish immigrant to London. The Count is a central European immigrant to London. He initially moves to Carfax Abbey, in the suburbs, before gentrifying himself and moving to Piccadilly.” Read more...
The Best Horror Stories
Darryl Jones ,
Literary Scholar
Anne Bronte's second and final novel centres around the mysterious figure of Helen Huntingdon, a woman who has fled an unhappy marriage where she has been the victim of abuse at the hands of an alcoholic husband. The opening section is told in form, by way of letters written by a man who has fallen in love with Helen; she later gives him her journal, an account of her traumatic experiences, as an explanation for why she refuses his advances. The book was controversial on first publication, and is considered an early feminist classic.
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Stephen King's first book, Carrie, was first published in 1974 and was turned into a hit Hollywood movie starring Sissy Spacek. It features a bullied Maine high school student who has grown up in a strict religious household, and who discovers she has telekinetic powers. The novel is usually categorised as an epistolary novel, as the narrative unfolds through a series of documents and reports presented in chronological order.
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“I actually came to this book because I saw the movie when I was 14 years old, when it first came out in the theatres. In the Black community, it was such an event to go see this film, because it was the first time in recent history that a story about Black women was being told this way on the big screen. I went with my cousin. She and I watched it and we cried like babies at the heartbreaking moments of the film. I didn’t even know who Alice Walker was, or that it was based on a book. When I found that out, I thought, ‘I have to read that book!’ I read it and fell in love all over again with those characters, because I got to know them so much better in the book.” Read more...
Best Books by Black Queer Writers
Robert Jones Jr. ,
Novelist
🏆 Winner of the 1987 Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction
Published in 1986, The Handmaid’s Tale is a haunting epistolary novel narrated by Offred, a woman living in a future America where environmental and societal breakdown have led to the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. In Gilead, women have been stripped of their fundamental rights and reduced to their reproductive potential. Lesbians and other 'gender outlaws' are executed, as are doctors who conduct abortions.
The Handmaid's Tale was recognised as a modern classic and first adapted into a film in 1990. It reappeared in the headlines (and the bestseller lists) in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s US electoral victory, after which time the handmaid's bonnet became an icon of the feminist protest movement. More recently it was adapted as a multi-Emmy Award-winning television series starring Elisabeth Moss, who also narrates the audiobook of The Handmaid's Tale .
The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is The Testaments,
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Graeme Macrae Burnet's brilliant, destabilising literary thriller uses (fictional) historical documents to construct a complex story of murder, corruption and unreliable narrators set in the 19th-century Scottish highlands. Long-listed for the Booker Prize.
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Stephen Chbosky's YA cult classic unfolds as a series of letters from 16-year-old student Charlie to an unnamed 'friend,' bringing the reader the sense of being in an intimate, confidence-sharing relationship with the troubled protagonist.
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“I suppose you could call it a time travel story. It takes place across all history, and features two protagonists, two women who are essentially spies—saboteurs for rival visions of the future, who are trying to twist the timeline to lead to their respective faction’s visions. But then they fall in love with each other. The story is incredibly beautiful and moving, and the language is so poetic. You get such a great sense of the two protagonists, their distinct personalities, their distinct ways of viewing the world, of seeing time.” Read more...
The Best of Speculative Fiction
Ken Liu ,
Novelist
A great fun murder mystery set in a small English town full of nosy neighbours, am-dram divas, and charity fundraisers. The action unfolds primarily through an archive of emails by the suspects and the criminal barristers who have now taken it upon themselves to solve the case.
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