Tag: Little Black Classics

  • To Be Read at Dusk

    This didn’t really work for me, unfortunately. I often don’t know what to do with the Victorian ghost-stories, since by our standards, they are hardly scary (but I guess they were for their time). In this edition however, were three stories and I felt they could perhaps have been a little longer and the ending… →

  • Hannibal

    Whenever I read about Troy, I cannot help but root for the Trojans. The same goes with Hannibal – I guess I prefer the underdog. This account is of course not really an objective account as history is written by the victors, and Livy being Roman didn’t help of course. This is just a short… →

  • The Sea Raiders

    A Slip Under The Microscope – another Little Black Classics, was still the only work of H.G. Wells I have read so far. Maybe, I should have read more, considering that I like science fiction a lot. The three stories that were included in the Sea Raiders, with deep-sea creatures taking it out on a… →

  • The World is Full of Foolish Men

    A collection of moralistic fables from the french author Jean de La Fontaine, which didn’t really work for me. I thought the moralistic part of it was a bit too obvious and I prefer it to be a little bit more subtle. I was also not familiar with these (as I have been with the… →

  • The Body Politic

    This is one of these editions that are mostly interesting for the historical importance, in this instance the French revolution. As such, I thought it was interesting to read some of it (just like most of the more political works in the Little Black Classics collection – but I would not pick up a more… →

  • Lady Susan

    For my Austen I read Pride and Prejudice in school because I had to, and it has left a bad taste, so I never returned to Austen – even though I know everyone loves the books. I wasn’t really looking forward to Lady Susan, but I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this little novella… →

  • Speaking of Siva

    I am sure that a lot was lost here in translation, and on top of that the poetry was very religious in theme. This is something I never really like in the first place, but it also became slightly boring even in this short collection of poems. I think this was not for me. Speaking… →

  • The Madness of Cambyses

    History has had its shares of crazy kings/rulers, and the Persian king Cambyses most certainly was one of them. Herodotus was a large part of our end-work for Greek in school, so I read quite some of his histories, but in Greek, before. The Madness of Cambyses is not as famous as for examples Croesus… →

  • O Cruel Alexis

    One thing I have learned from the Little Black Classics – Pastoral is not my thing. I can’t stand the naivety and more. This collection of Pastoral poems from Virgil was up against some very bad odds for me to like it. The fragments included were rather random and the poetry didn’t seem that inspired.… →

  • Kansyan from the Beautiful Lands

    I couldn’t help but think these two stories were rather pointless. It felt to me as if the writer was going to make a point or a plot at some point, but it sort of sizzled out before it could be made. Perhaps this was the aim, to show how many events will not have… →

  • Come Close

    It’s me and poetry again. I was quite looking forward to Sappho. While I hadn’t read any of her poetry before, I was curious since it was a name I had heard a lot. Also, it is so rare that it has survived so long and that it was passed down through time to us.… →

  • The Fall of Icarus

    I liked the myths that were included in this collection – much more than just the Fall of Icarus. The particular edition however is rather random as the stories follow each other, which made me wonder exactly who this collection was aiming for as an audience? It might confuse people who hear the stories for… →

  • Miss Brill

    A woman sits in a park listening to the conversations of passersby and imagining the rest of their lives, all the while feeling better than them and looking down on them. A pure form of loneliness, and even worse, she doesn’t realize that the other people consider her the strange woman who talks to herself.… →

  • Il Duro

    Il Duro was my introduction to D.H. Lawrence but I am not sure it was the best place to start. It contains writings from his travels in Italy and I think travel writing is something on its own that not everyone will enjoy. For me it was lukewarm, the writing was okay but I felt… →

  • Circe and the Cyclops

    I think it is great that stories like the Odyssey have survived for this long and are still so well known. The pieces about the Cyclops and Circe are among the best known parts I think. I read these in class but it was a couple of years ago, so it nice to revisit. I… →

  • I Love and I Hate

    We didn’t read this in school, so it was the first of Catullus that I read. It’s another poetry collection. The title sums up quite well the problems that Catullus faces with the woman he loves, since it is clear that love and hate are not so different after all. While the poems feel rather… →

  • The Robber Bridegroom

    This was an interesting edition, which featured some well-known and some lesser known fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers. The titular story tells of a young girl who finds out her intended is not all that great and figures out a way to defeat him. Another one, the six servants, I only knew from the… →

  • It was snowing butterflies

    I have never read On the Origin of Species. However, I was glad that some of Darwin’s writing had made the Little Black Classics. These are a part of his notes that he took while on Beagle trying to prove the evolution theory. As such it provides not only biology, but also remarks on exploring… →

  • A Pair of Silk Stockings

    I had not heard of Kate Chopin before I started reading this. A Pair of Silk Stockings contains five short stories and overall it was a really nice read. That’s what I have been reading these little books for, finding new-to-me authors. In the title story, a woman has 15 dollars to spend on nice… →

  • The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe

    This was horrible! One of the worst in the collection, of that I am sure. When reading historical accounts it is always difficult, because their actions have to be put in the historical context rather than how we would judge these actions today. However, The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe, is… →

  • The Night is Darkening Round Me

    My first venture into the works of the Brontë sisters contains poems by Emily, although it says that one of the poems included is now rather assigned to Charlotte. These poems are very dark. Death is the one recurring theme. As such it feels very 19th Century, but it didn’t make for very enjoyable reading.… →

  • Lips Too Chilled

    Poetry has always been somewhat of a hit or miss with me. Lips Too Chilled collects Haiku, and I am not really experienced reading them. So, maybe that is why I quite liked these, some were very nice in their short simplicity. I am usually not one for the very strict formats that different poem-styles… →

  • The Old Man of the Moon

    Penguin describes this edition as a Chinese official’s account of his all-consuming love for his wife, and that pretty much sums up the book. It is also an account of life in China in the 18th century of course, but it is the love story which is at the center of it. There were some… →

  • Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime

    I started collecting Penguin’s Little Black Classics, and my random reading pilot drew this booklet. (I believe this was the first LBC I’ve read) I was never really crazy about The Picture of Dorian Grey. I read it and it wasn’t bad but not as good as I expected it would be (based on raving… →