• The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters to a Young Painter by Rainer Maria Rilke
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - The Death and Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence by Alice James
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters: 1925-1975 by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell

The Best Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner

The next release in the ekphrasis series from David Zwirner Books is Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, including an introduction by Michael Bracewell and a colour portrait of Wilde by Marlene Dumas. Head of Content Lucas Zwirner talks to Five Books about the inspiration he’s drawn from literary letters and how they inform the editorial direction of the publishing house.

  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List - Troilus and Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer (ed. by Stephen Barney)
  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List - Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde by Barry Windeatt
  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List - The Double Sorrow of Troilus: A Study of Ambiguities in ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ by Ida L. Gordon
  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List - The Tragic Argument of Troilus and Criseyde by Gerald Morgan
  • Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List - A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde by Lavinia Greenlaw

Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer: A Reading List, recommended by Jenni Nuttall

Troilus and Criseyde has a centuries’ old backstory. Long before Renaissance dramas or realist novels, Chaucer wrote a love story set in a besieged city that was a deep psychological exploration of character and human relationships. Jenni Nuttall, author of Troilus and Criseyde: A Reader’s Guide, shares her reading recommendations after over a decade of teaching the poem to Oxford undergraduates.

  • The Best Daphne du Maurier Books - Manderley Forever: The Life of Daphne du Maurier by Tatiana de Rosnay
  • The Best Daphne du Maurier Books - The King's General by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Best Daphne du Maurier Books - The Parasites by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Best Daphne du Maurier Books - The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Best Daphne du Maurier Books - The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier

The Best Daphne du Maurier Books, recommended by Laura Varnam

Daphne du Maurier is one of the most overlooked writers of the twentieth century, says Oxford University’s Laura Varnam. As her best known-work, Rebecca, continues to attract new movie adaptations and du Maurier enjoys a critical renaissance, Varnam explores the books which highlight this novelist’s sheer range and brilliance—from biography and fiction to history and horror.

  • The Best George Eliot Books - Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Adam Bede by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • The Best George Eliot Books - George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals by John Walter Cross

The Best George Eliot Books, recommended by Philip Davis

George Eliot is all but synonymous with Victorian realism; for D H Lawrence, she was the first novelist to start ‘putting all the action inside.’ Here, Philip Davis, author of The Transferred Life of George Eliot, selects the best books by or about one of the greatest novelists of all time: ‘If you want to read literature that sets out to create a holding ground for raw human material—for human struggles, difficulties, and celebrations—read George Eliot’