Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library! You can use this flyer: 100 years of great books_ popular books from 1918 or create your own!
(All the book links below lead to Amazon; if you click on one and buy things from Amazon, CMLE may receive a small percentage of Amazon’s profits. Thanks!)
Today we are peeling back the pages of history to give you a taste of the literary scene of one hundred years ago. You may recognize or even may have read some of these titles yourself but maybe these recommendations will spark a drive to checkout some of these classics and get a taste of the age.
“My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. It is the final book of her “prairie trilogy” of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.
Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I. Cather grew up in Virginia and Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She lived and worked in Pittsburgh for ten years, supporting herself as a magazine editor and high school English teacher. At the age of 33 she moved to New York City, her primary home for the rest of her life, though she also traveled widely and spent considerable time at her summer residence in Grand Manan, New Brunswick.”
The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum
“Join the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow as they journey across the fantastic magical Land of Oz in search of the Tin Woodman’s long-lost sweetheart. In a series of adventures sure to thrill Oz fans both old and new, these beloved friends face such challenges as a selfish giantess and a group of quarrelsome dragons–all to fulfill a promise made long ago to a beautiful Munchkin girl.
The Tin Woodman sits on the glittering tin throne of his splendid tin castle, ruling the Winkle Country of the Land of Oz with the help of his best friend, the Scarecrow. All is peaceful and well, but when a young wanderer named Woot asks the Tin Woodman how he came to be made of tin, the emperor recalls his days as a flesh-and-blood woodchopper and his love for Nimmie Amee, a Munchkin girl so fair that the sunsets blushed when they fell upon her.
The three quickly decide to set out on a daring quest to reunite the Tin Woodman with his lost love and ask Nimmie Amee to be Empress of the Winkie Country. During their travels, they battle dragons and loons, a mighty sorceress, and an all-too-hungry beast called the Hippo-gy-raf. Luckily, they are joined in their search by their old friend Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter, and are aided by Dorothy and Princess Ozma–the powerful fairy ruler of the Land of Oz. But just when they think their troubles are over and their quest is complete, they discover a surprise that leaves all of them truly astounded!”
Exiles by James Joyce“One of the most widely read novelists of the twentieth century, James Joyce is famed for his mastery of expression. His unprecedented exploration of the English language, in particular, has made him one of the most influential writers of modern times.
This three-act play was first published in 1918; and like much of Joyce’s other works, it is an imaginative reconstruction of his own life. In it, Richard Rowan, an Irish writer who has spent much time abroad, feels estranged from Irish society when he returns to Dublin. Focusing on the love entanglements between Rowan; his common-law wife, Bertha; and his friends, the story is requisite reading for devotees of this brilliant author.”
Brood of the Witch Queen by Sax Rohmer
“A supernatural novel written in 1918, “Brood of the Witch Queen” is often called the scariest book ever written. Robert Cairn is suspicious of the son of his father’s friend. The son’s name is Anthony Ferrara and he is murdered at the beginning of the book. The horrifying events start from there and most of them take place in an inner secret chamber inside a pyramid in Egypt. Summoned elements, burned corpses, women forced to prey upon their own husbands … this book will have you needing a night light for weeks!”
The Fugitive by Rabindranath Tagore
“The first non-Western writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature Rabindranath Tagore was the literary voice of India. ‘The Fugitive’ is an excellent example of his work, featuring six stories and several spiritual songs.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Nobel Laureate for Literature (1913) as well as one of India’s greatest poets and the composer of independent India’s national anthem, as well as that of Bangladesh. He wrote successfully in all literary genres, but was first and foremost a poet, publishing more than 50 volumes of poetry. He was a Bengali writer who was born in Calcutta and later traveled around the world. He was knighted in 1915, but gave up his knighthood after the massacre of demonstrators in India in 1919.”
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
“Writing her first novel during World War I, West examines the relationship between three women and a soldier suffering from shell-shock. This novel of an enclosed world invaded by public events also embodies in its characters the shifts in England’s class structures at the beginning of the twentieth century
The Return of the Soldier concerns the title character and three very different women to whom he is linked in very different ways–by blood, by marriage, and by love. It is also an imaginative study (one drenched in realism) of intimacy and illusion, possession and a terrible, destructive snobbery. On one estate outside London, even as the Great War and familial loss are taking their toll, the inhabitants strive for a measured, outwardly exquisite existence.
Rebecca West (1892-1983) was a novelist, biographer, journalist, and critic. She published eight novels in addition to her masterpiece Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, for which she made several trips to the Balkans. Following World War II, she also published two books on the relation of the individual to the state, called The Meaning of Treason and A Train of Powder.”