Classics challenge #2, 3, and 4 -- postscript

(Supplement to the previous post about my three most recent titles for the 2007 Winter Classics Challenge . . .)

Jill at Individual Take has written one of her wonderfully comprehensive entries for Mary Barton, with summary, extract, commentary, and links; her other reflections on the work and its author are here (gender issues and the canon) and here (initial responses to the early chapters). She has also just added her insights on Scarlet Pimpernel in its various permutations, again with relevant links. As always, her comments are well worth reading.

Since I knew Jill would cover those works so well, I didn't worry about supplementary information for Elizabeth Gaskell or Baroness Orczy. A Bell for Adano does merit a couple of links, however. This is what appears to be a graduate student's study for a library science course in bibliography; it links to the original cover image and includes excerpts from contemporary reviews about 3/4 down the page, followed by discussion of the novel's reception over time and a critical essay. Among other things, I learned that John Hershey had written an article for LIFE magazine ("AMGOT at Work: An American Major brings some American democracy to his job of administering a small Sicilian town," August 23, 1943) which served as the genesis of the novel.

Finally, over at Dolce Bellezza, another blogger recently discovered A Bell for Adano, found it "one of the loveliest books [she's] ever read," and comments on its appeal for her.