J May

Scholarship Reading List 2014

Ideally, you will enter the scholarship exam with a myriad of literary sources to draw on. The list
below contains canonical texts that have shaped and influenced the face of literature. In order to
appreciate innovations of modern literature you must be familiar with the texts containing the
conventions and themes which they revisit or reject.
Novels
As you read, consider how the novel has changed throughout history in terms of its themes,
purpose and content. In order to grasp the changing landscape of literature read at least ONE text
from EACH of these periods:

Pre-1900 _____________________________
1900-1940 ___________________________
1940-1980___________________________
1980-Present ________________________


Date Title Author About? Read?
1594 The Unfortunate
Traveller
Thomas Nashe The adventures of Jack Wilton, fighting in the
French Wars and viewing various atrocities.

1719 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Fictional autobiography of the title character
a castaway

1726 Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift Fantastical voyage parodying travel fiction,
satirizing human nature.

1764 The Castle of Otranto Horace
Walpole
The first gothic novel
1813 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen Astute social observation & romance.
Wonderfully drawn characters, witty and
endearing.

1847 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte A gothic masterpiece. Complex interweaving
of narratives, enthralling characters in a wild
landscape.

1847 Jane Eyre Charlotte
Bronte
Bildungsroman, social criticism, evocative
gothic atmosphere.

1848 Mary Barton Elizabeth
Gaskell
A Tale of Manchester Life, the difficulties of
lower class Victorian society.

1853 Bleak House Charles
Dickens
Complex plot & subplot. Dickens finest.
Justice & Injustice

1868 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins The first Detective novel
1874 Middlemarch George Eliot A Realist novel. Humanist. Morality,
idealism, intellectualism.

1889 The Nether World George Gissing Naturalistic, pessimistic portrayal of lower
class Victorian society

1890 The Picture of Dorian
Gray
Oscar Wilde Hedonism, beauty, corruption and morality.
1891 Tess of the
DUrbervilles
Thomas Hardy Morality, tragedy, pastoral. Insightful,
dramatic and moving.

1898 War of the Worlds H.G. Wells Victorian Science Fiction, London is invaded
by Martians.

1902 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad The dark side of European colonization in
Africa.

1913 Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence Emotional bildungsroman, social
progression, sexual awakening.

1916 A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man
James Joyce Joyces distinctive introspective style.
Intellectual and religio-philosophical
awakening. Semi-autobiographical.

J May
1925 Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf A day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, the
perfect hostess. Feminism, suicide,
homosexuality.

1925 Carry On, Jeeves P.G.
Wodehouse
Collection of several short stories. Whimsical
characters, high society of London between
the wars. Fun.

1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott
Fitzgerald
Set in Roaring 20s America. Social class, the
American Dream, love.

1932 Brave New World Adolus Huxley An imagined futuristic society with sleep-
learning and reproductive technology.

1945 Animal Farm George Orwell Dystopian Allegory
1948 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell Dystopian oligarchical society.
1951 The Catcher in the
Rye
J.D. Salinger Teenage angst and rebellion. Themes of
sexuality and alienation. Anti-hero.

1954 Lord of the Flies William
Golding
British schoolboys stuck on a deserted Island.
Good and Evil

1957 On the Road Jack Kerouac Autobiographical accounts of road trips
across the US. Defining work of the post-war
Beat Generation.

1960 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Humorous and endearing whilst discussing
racism, prejudice and justice in America.

1961 Catch 22 Joseph Heller Set during WWII, Follows a US bombardier.
1962 One Flew over the
Cuckoos Nest
Ken Kesey Exploring the human mind and
institutionalism within a mental institude.

1962 A Clockwork Orange Anthony
Burgess
Dystopian novella. Language innovation and
issues of free will.

1962 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck Set during the Great Depression in America
poor sharecroppers experiencing drought,
and economic hardship.

1969 The French
Lieutenants Woman
John Fowles Period novel set in Victorian England. Elusive
central character, existentialism, self
reflexivity, intrusive author.

1969 Slaughter House-Five Kurt Vonnegut Science fiction about an American soldier in
World War II who journeys through time.
Non-linear narrative.

1985 The Handmaids Tale Margaret
Atwood
Dystopian science fiction. Subjugated women
in a totalitarian theocracy in America.

1985 Love in the Time of
Cholera
Gabriel Garcia
Marquez
Set in the Caribbean, love across a lifetime.
Maturity, ageing.

1988 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho The allegorical journey of a young shepherd
boy to find treasure at the pyramids of Egypt.

1997 The God of Small
Things
Arundhati Roy Fraternal twins exploring love, who should
receive it and how. Set in India.

2001 Atonement Ian McEwan An upper middle class girl in inter-war
Britain aspires to be a writer and makes a
terrible mistake. The nature of writing.

2003 The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the
Night-time
Mark Haddon Perspective of a 15 year old boy A
mathematician with behavioral problems

2003 The Kite Runner Khaled
Hosseini
A young boy in Afghanistan during the rise of
the Taliban. Friendship, war, duty.

2005 No Country for Old
Men
Cormac
McCarthy
Illicit drug deal gone wrong in a remote
desert location in the Midwest.



What next? Ask Ms May or your English teacher for suggestions OR check out:
www.whichbook.net

J May
Poetry

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. - Percy Shelley.

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of literature and this list is just a drop in the ocean.
Read a selection of texts with different themes, forms, authors, cultures and contexts.
If theres a poem youd like to explore more deeply, ask Ms May for a tutorial or
recommendations of critical reading.

Date Title Author About? Read?
1037BC
- 967 BC
The Psalms King David 150 poems in The Bible expressing love,
life, lamentation, joy and sorrow.

8
th
-11
th

century
Beowulf ? Mead, murder and heroes in Scandinavia.
Old English Epic.

8
th

century
The Dream of the Rood ? The story of the crucifixion from
perspective of the cross.

14
th

century
The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer A cornerstone of English Lit. A collection
of stories, noble and bawdy, by pilgrims.

14
th

century
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Gawain Poet Medieval romance. A Knight of Arthurs
Court vs a completely green man. Loyalty,
chivalry.

1503-
1542
Whoso list to hunt Sir Thomas Wyatt Introduction of the sonnet form to English
Literature. Love & hunting.

1580 Astrophil and Stella Sir Philip Sidney Beautiful sonnet cycle about all aspects of
love: rejection, elation, hope and despair.

1590 The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser Thrilling Medieval Epic. Knights of Queen
Elizabeth complete quests to save the
country and its Christian morals. Allegory.

1609 Sonnets William
Shakespeare
The Fair Boy & the Dark Lady. Highlights:
116, 18, 12, 60, 130.

1613 The Flea John Donne The Renaissance version of Lets get in
on. Metaphysical preacher.

1616 On My First Sonne Ben Johnson Family relationships, grief, love, God.
1650 To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell Masterfully persuasive courting poem.
Love, sex, ageing.

1667 Paradise Lost John Milton The story of The Fall re-imagined into a
Christian EPIC.

1712 The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope Mock heroic satirizing the courting
process & the delicacies of women.

1734 A Beautiful Young Nymph going
to bed.
Jonathan Swift King of satire, Swift describes a
prostitutes dishabilles. Disgusting, sad,
and poignant.

1798 Tintern Abbey William
Wordsworth
The sublimity of nature, nostalgia, ageing.
1798 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Coleridge A sailor has returned from a long sea
voyage. A bit trippy theres an albatross

1819 Ode to a Nightingale John Keats Beauty, ennui, life, poetry.
1819 The Eve of St Agnes John Keats Porphyro - romantic hero or villainous
seducer capitalizes on a myth.

1819-
1824
Don Juan Lord Byron Epic satire. Infamous libertine, adventurer
and womanizer partly autobiographical.

1842 The Lady of Shallot Alfred Tennyson Romanticized medieval setting. Poetic
creation, Marxism, chivalry.

1845 The Raven Edgar Allen Poe Gothic, ominous, supernatural
1849 In Memoriam Alfred Tennyson Written over 17 years in tribute to
J May
Tennysons best friend. Grief in all its
aspects.
1855 To You Walt Whitman Father of free verse, canonical American
humanist.

1861 A Birthday Christina Rossetti Just. Beautiful.
1922 The Wasteland T.S. Eliot Pivotal poem in the modernist movement.
Fragmentation, disintegration of the
psyche, gender roles.

1920 The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock
T.S. Eliot Tormented psyche of a neurotic
individual trying to exist in the world.

1933 The Winding Stair W.B. Yeats Art and life, the cyclical nature of life.
1934 This is just to say William Carlos
Williams
Modernism, imagism. Sparse and
powerful poetry.

1957 Not Waving but Drowning Stevie Smith Disconcerting mixture of wit and
seriousness.

1951 Do Not Go Gentle Dylan Thomas Villanelle. Death, grief, life.
1955 Howl Allen Ginsberg Seminal figure in the history of poetry
part of the Beat movement. Society,
disillusionment.

1962 Ariel Sylvia Plath Confessional poetry.
1971 This be the verse Philip Larkin Depressing repetitive nature of life and
relationships.