Tag: Little Black Classics

  • Leonardo da Vinci

    For me Vasari’s addition to the little black classics showed once more that reading about great artists can be extraordinarily dull. While it was clear from the writing that Vasari admires Leonardo da Vinci and the other artists described in the book, I found it rather random and never warmed up to his style. I… →

  • How Much Land Does A Man Need?

    Tolstoy may be known for his gigantic works like Anna Karenina and War & Peace, but this is a very neat short story, a parable of man’s greed and ambitions. What we have is never enough, we always want more. While it was clear where the story was heading – I am pretty sure someone… →

  • The Life of a Stupid Man

    The Life of a Stupid Man collects three stories by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The first was the nicest, a short story about a murder told from the perspective of several witness, including – strangely enough – the murder victim. This one I quite liked. The other two stories were autobiographical and very fragmentary. Those… →

  • Antigone

    I had actually never read Antigone until this point, although the story was familiar of course. Antigone, the titular character, goes against her uncle the King’s wishes and buries her brother who died in rebellion. →

  • Socrates’ Defence

    I couldn’t read this without hearing the song from Horrible Histories. Either way this was a very interesting read. I have read some Plato before for school, but never his more famous work on Socrates. Here he really tries to keep the style rather simple – for he is accused of bedazzling the audience with… →

  • Anthem For Damned Youth

    I saw some of Owen’s work in class, but it was a while ago and I can’t really recall it. However, his tragic end just before the armistice stuck with me, especially since his poems are very anti-war. Poetry in the Little Black Classics has not been the easiest for me. However, I found this… →

  • The Figure in the Carpet

    I didn’t really like this and I think it is mainly due to the fact I disagree with what it proposes. It features a writer who cannot enjoy all the positive reviews for his latest work since he feels that all reviewers are missing the most important point he is trying to make. When one… →

  • The Reckoning

    This edition contains two short stories by the American author Edith Wharton. The first is on marriage and falling in and out of love. And while I quite liked the concept, I liked the second story a bit better. It’s about an old woman who’s main pleasure in life is watching the world pass by… →

  • The Great Fire of London

    I thought it would be a no-brainer I would like this. It’s a historical account of London around and during the great fire of London in 1666, which burned down much of The City as well as burned out the plague (to name one good thing that came from it). The signs of the fire… →

  • The Nose

    This is a weird story. A man wakes up to find his nose missing and for him, this is the end of the world. How can he ever go out in public again, how could someone possibly take him serious ever again? This is rather absurd of course, and there is very little logic in… →

  • A Simple Heart

    I am a little bit conflicted about stories like A Simple Heart. It tells the rather bleak life of a servant girl. And while I like that the main character is not a hero of some sort or very special, it does not make for the most engaging type of story. The writing was nice… →

  • The Meek One

    I am in the minority here who didn’t like The Meek One. I just really didn’t enjoy the story about a man who is so detached from his young wife that he drives her to suicide. The writing is good but I really can not stand to read about all this psychological abuse. As in… →

  • Remember, Body…

    Some Greek poetry in the Little Black Classics collection, and it is relatively modern (as in the author has not been dead for the past two millennia). These are sensual poems. There is a lot of love and maybe more so longing for love. This feeling was portrayed rather well, but the poems became sort… →

  • Little Black Classics – All in one review and a review for all

    Recently I finished the last of the 127 books from the Little Black Classics collection, which were all published by Penguin in 2015-2016. Small bites of Classics, to try them out and discover new authors. Or that was what I thought. In a couple of posts I will be looking back at the multi-year reading… →

  • The Yellow Wall-Paper

    This was one of my favorite books in the collection, again from a writer – Charlotte Perkins Gilman – whom I had never heard of before. It is a chilling tale of a woman who, by her doctor husband who believes she is hysteric, is prescribed rest. As the time goes on, she is denied… →

  • The Steel Flea

    The Steel Flea is a piece of Russian comedy for a change. I am more familiar with Russian tragedy, but since this in essence is still a satire or social commentary it is not unlike the other Russian authors that I read. It is a short tale of Russian worker who aims to outdo the… →

  • The Old Nurse’s Story

    I bought the whole collection of Little Black Classics not only because they look so pretty on my shelves, but also because I was hoping to read some authors which I had never heard of but were pretty great. Elizabeth Gaskell was of those. This collection contains two short stories which portray her nice writing… →

  • The Maldive Shark

    Melville, best know for Moby Dick, has some of his work collected in this edition that was inspired by his years on sea. I think the best part of it was that I immediately got that he actually spent his time there. Descriptions of the life at sea seemed – as far as I could… →

  • The Great Winglebury Duel

    I am way behind on my classics and I am willing to admit it. This means so far, I had not read much of Charles Dickens besides A Christmas Carol. This edition contains two short stories, and they were quite nice but lacked something. Maybe, because the typical social criticism was largely absent, it felt… →

  • Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings

    There’s not more to it than the title suggests. So, I can also be short in my review. I didn’t like it at all. Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings (Little Black Classics #36) – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe →

  • Well, they are gone, and here must I remain

    Well, they are gone, and here must I remain – a long title for a short collection of poetry. Maybe a bit of a weird choice, since it is quite the mouthful. On the other hand though, it sort of resembles perfectly the kind of romantic poetry that is collected here. Coleridge was one of… →

  • Little Black Classics – In search of the quintessential classic

    Or: Some statistics on a Saturday Recently I finished the last of the 127 books from the Little Black Classics collection, which were all published by Penguin in 2015-2016. Small bites of Classics, to try them out and discover new authors. Or that was what I thought. In a couple of posts I will be… →

  • Gooseberries

    This collection of three short stories was my introduction to Chekhov, and it failed to really sway me. The writing was good, if a bit depressing, but the stories failed to grab my full attention. I have to admit that the shorter the story, the less likely I am to like it. It is too… →

  • How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing

    Michel de Montaigne was apparently one the most important French Renaissance philosophers, but I had never heard of the good man before picking up this Little Black Classic which bundles six of his essays. I was pleasantly surprised. His ideas were not particularly shocking (at least not today) but the meandering way in which it… →