Literature – Interesting Literature

Beasts and Un-Beasts: On Saki’s ‘The Penance’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Penance’ has everything we expect from a quintessential Saki story: cruel and borderline feral children, misunderstood animals, and some of the wittiest prose ever committed to paper. If you’ve never read Saki before, I previously compiled a list of ten of my favourite stories of his, though ten really isn’t a big enough number. On some level, every short story by Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916) is worth reading (it’s thought he took his pen name Saki from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam).

Why ‘Man Friday’ Wasn’t Man Friday

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Robinson Crusoe probably has more misconceptions surrounding it than just about any other novel in English literature.

For a start, it’s often claimed it was the first novel (it wasn’t). It’s sometimes claimed, with a little more nuance, that it was the first English novel (it wasn’t). It’s also claimed that it was inspired by one man, the real-life, shipwrecked Scot named Alexander Selkirk (it wasn’t). It’s then claimed that Crusoe was shipwrecked on a deserted island (he wasn’t). This last ‘fact’ is immediately refuted by the fact that it was on this supposedly deserted island that Crusoe met his servant Man Friday, who was so named because Crusoe discovered him on a Friday (he didn’t).

Let’s take these misconceptions one at a time.

Is The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes Really That Bad?

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Even among diehard Sherlockians, the nine-book ‘canon’ of Conan Doyle-authored Sherlock Holmes books has surprisingly few out-and-out classics that all can agree on. The first two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, show Doyle still finding his feet with the two central characters, and the mysteries themselves are in some respects short stories stretched out to novel (or perhaps only novella) length.

A Summary and Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s ‘Zero Hour’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Zero Hour’ is a 1949 short story by the American author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), included in his 1953 collection The Illustrated Man. In the story, which is set in a future America, a young girl is befriended by an alien who needs her help to invade Earth and kill the adults.

You can read ‘Zero Hour’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Bradbury’s story below. The story takes around fifteen minutes to read.

10 of the Best Poems by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), or H. D. as she chose to publish, was labelled ‘the perfect imagist’ by various critics and reviewers. Born in the United States, H. D. made her literary name in London, where she was at the centre of the short-lived imagist movement during the First World War.