Places Summaries

First published: 1889 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Impressionistic realism Time of work: Nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Last Island Last ChitaIsland. Fashionable resort in the Gulf of Mexico that is devastated by the hurricane that kills Chita’s natural mother and leaves her adrift in the sea. Filled […]

First published: 1934 First produced: 1934, at Maxine Elliot’s Theatre, New York City Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Problem Time of work: 1930’s Places Discussed Wright-Dobie School Wright-Dobie Children’s Hour, TheSchool. Girls’ school, near the fictional town of Lancet in rural New England, that is the play’s principal setting. A modest but comfortable […]

First published: 1812-1818 Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Picaresque Time of work: 1809-1818 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Spain *Spain. Childe Harold’s PilgrimageIn canto 1, Childe Harold departs Albion, or England, and crosses the Bay of Biscay to Portugal and Spain, which has become the battleground for “Gaul’s,” or France’s, […]

First published: 1973 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Early 1960’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Eastern Tennessee *Eastern Child of GodTennessee. Remote and harsh hill country area dominated by woods, rivers, and fields. Evicted from his home as the result of a false charge of […]

First published: 1981, with The Year of the Dragon First produced: 1972, at the American Place Theatre, New York City Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: Late 1960’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Oakland *Oakland. Chickencoop Chinaman, ThePrincipally African American district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the protagonist’s […]

First published: 1916 Type of work: Poetry Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Chicago *Chicago. Chicago PoemsIllinois’s largest city and the industrial and commercial center of the Midwest. Sandburg’s poetry depicts Chicago as a mythic figure, a city personified as a kind of superman–optimistic, pugnacious, and indomitable. Ultimately, Sandburg celebrates the city’s unquenchable […]

First published: 1904 as Vishnyovy sad (English translation, 1908) First produced: 1904 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Impressionistic realism Time of work: Early twentieth century Places Discussed Ranevsky estate Ranevsky Cherry Orchard, Theestate. Madame Ranevsky’s estate is located somewhere in the provinces of central Russia. Three acts of the play take place in […]

First published: Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, 1846 (English translation, 1846) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical Time of work: 1793 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Paris *Paris. Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, TheTypical of romans feuilletons–books published in installments–this novel is full of references to the streets of Paris, which is explicitly […]

First produced: 1936 First published: 1936 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1895-1931 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Claremore Mound Claremore Cherokee Night, TheMound. Scene of a nineteenth century massacre of Osages by Cherokees in the last big battle between the two tribes. Claremont, chief of […]

First published: 1920 (English translation, 1929) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: c. 1910 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Paris *Paris. ChériFrance’s capital city is an essential ingredient in the story of Chéri. In this novel, Colette creates a portrait of Paris in the early twentieth […]

First published: La Chartreuse de Parme, 1839 (English translation, 1895) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical Time of work: Early nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Milan *Milan. Charterhouse of Parma, TheCity in northern Italy’s Lombardy region. Stendhal evokes the atmosphere of this region to explain Napoleon’s romantic impact […]

First published: 1653 First produced: 1622 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: Early seventeenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Alicante *Alicante. Changeling, TheMediterranean port city near Valencia in eastern Spain in which the play is set. The play opens outdoors, near a church by the port, […]

First published: 1925 (English translation, 1931) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: Early nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *South Africa *South ChakaAfrica. The interior of what is now the Republic of South Africa provides a realistic backdrop for the quasi-historical story of the rise […]

First published: Les Chaises, 1954 (English translation, 1958, in Four Plays by Ionesco) First produced: 1952, at the Théâtre du Nouveau Lancry, Paris Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Absurdist Time of work: Indeterminate Places Discussed Tower Tower. Chairs, TheStructure in the middle of a circular island surrounded by a stagnant sea in which […]

First published: 1977 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Shortly after World War II Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Gallup *Gallup. CeremonyNorthwestern New Mexico city on the Puerco River that is the seat of McKinley County. With Navajo communities to the north and west, Zuni to […]

First published: 1819 First produced: 1886 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: Sixteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Rome *Rome. Cenci, TheGreat Italian city in which the primary palace of the Cenci family is built. Outwardly, the palace reflects the grandeur of Rome at the end […]

First published: Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, 1499; revised edition, 1502, as Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (English translation, 1631) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Tragicomedy Time of work: Fifteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Spain *Spain. CelestinaAlthough the novel makes no specific mention of where it is set, […]

First published: 1782 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Eighteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Bury *Bury Cecilia (BIHR-ee). Rural Suffolk town in which Cecilia grows up and where her family has a long history of being rich farmers. Her background is thus one of […]

First published: 1611 as Catiline His Conspiracy First produced: 1611 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Political Time of work: 62 b.c.e. Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Rome *Rome. CatilineAncient capital of Roman civilization. Jonson uses a well-known plot to overthrow a government as a means of demonstrating the danger that […]

First published: 1951 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Late 1940’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *New York City *New Catcher in the Rye, TheYork City. Primary setting for most of Salinger’s writings. Salinger knew the city well; while he grants New York the “big-city” aura […]

First published: 1961 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Metafiction Time of work: 1944 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Hospital Hospital. Catch-22Military hospital in Pianosa in which the novel opens and to which it periodically returns; it is the refuge to which Army Air Force captain John Yossarian, the protagonist, escapes […]

First published: 1955 First produced: 1955 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: Mid-twentieth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Mississippi Delta *Mississippi Cat on a Hot Tin RoofDelta. Fertile farming region of the western part of the state of Mississippi that is bordered by the Mississippi […]

First published: Katz und Maus, 1961 (English translation, 1963) Type of work: Novella Type of plot: Bildungsroman Time of work: World War II Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Danzig *Danzig Cat and Mouse (DAN-zik). Polish city (now known as Gdansk) on the Baltic that was occupied by Nazi Germany during the time […]

First published: 1800 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Regional Time of work: Eighteenth century Places Discussed Castle Rackrent Castle Castle RackrentRackrent. Irish home of the Rackrent family, the novel’s primary setting. The castle symbolizes the relationship of England and Ireland during a historical period when a harsh debate over union of Ireland with […]

First published: 1765 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Gothic Time of work: Thirteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Otranto Otranto. Castle of Otranto, TheLarge estate dominated by a castle in Sicily. The massive details of the medieval castle and the rich surrounding territory, ruled by Manfred, prince of Otranto, […]

First published: Das Schloss, 1926 (English translation, 1930; restored German edition, 1982; new English translation, 1998) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Allegory Time of work: Early twentieth century Places Discussed Bridge Bridge. Castle, TheWooden bridge connecting the main approach to the village on which the protagonist, K., pauses in the opening moments of […]

First transcribed: c. 50 b.c.e. (English translation, 1894) Type of work: Poetry Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Rome *Rome. CarminaCenter of Roman civilization that is the backdrop for most of Catullus’s poems. His verses include descriptions of the cosmopolitan circle in which he lived and wrote. When he describes the Spaniard Egnatius […]

First published: 1945 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1940’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Grand Republic Grand Cass TimberlaneRepublic. Minnesota hometown of District Judge Cass Timberlane, located in fictional Radisson County, eighty miles north of Minneapolis, more than seventy miles from Duluth, with a population […]

First published: 1845; revised, 1847 (English translation, 1878) Type of work: Novella Type of plot: Psychological Time of work: Early nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Andalusia *Andalusia. CarmenSouthern province of Spain that is the story’s principal setting. Don José’s narrative to the scholar from his jail cell forms the main […]

First published: 1960 First produced: 1960 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Surrealism Time of work: Twentieth century Places Discussed London flat London Caretaker, Theflat. One-room setting for the play’s entire three acts. The time setting is contemporary with the writing. The room is in a run-down house in a run-down area in the […]

First produced: Captivi, second century (English translation, 1767) Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Farce Time of work: War between Aetolia and Elis Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Aetolia *Aetolia Captives, The (ee-TOH-lee-ah). Ancient city-state in western Greece, near which Hegio lives close to an unnamed harbor town. Aetolia is at […]

First published: Kapitanskaya dochka, 1836 (English translation, 1846) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical Time of work: c. 1774 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Simbirsk *Simbirsk Captain’s Daughter, The (sihm-BEERSK). Russian town (later renamed Ulyanovsk) on the Volga River 485 miles east of Moscow. In one of Simbirsk’s surrounding rural […]

First published: 1897 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: 1890’s Places Discussed Grand Banks Grand Captains CourageousBanks. North Atlantic Ocean region off the coast of Newfoundland that is the novel’s primary setting. Once the richest fishing area in the world, the 150,000-square-mile region mixes the frigid waters of the Labrador […]

First published: 1939; Beat to Quarters, 1937; Ship of the Line, 1938; Flying Colours, 1939 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical Time of work: June, 1808-June, 1811 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed HMS Lydia HMS Captain Horatio HornblowerLydia. Three-masted, thirty-six-gun frigate of the British Royal Navy commanded by post captain […]

First transcribed: 1387-1400 Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Romance, farce, fable Time of work: Antiquity through the fourteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Tabard Inn Tabard Canterbury Tales, TheInn. English tavern that is the starting point of the poem’s pilgrimage, located in Southwark, a borough across the River Thames […]

First published: 1949 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Allegory Time of work: Twentieth century Places Discussed Spitzen-on-the-Dien Spitzen-on-the-Dien. Cannibal, TheImaginary German village in which the new Germany is to be born. The novel opens and closes in 1945 in Allied-occupied Germany with a first-person, neo-Nazi narrator, Zizendorf, declaring that the town is an […]

First published: 1923 Type of work: Poetry and short fiction Type of plot: Experimental Time of work: Early twentieth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *American South *American CaneSouth. Although Toomer lived in the South only for a brief period, the experience had connected him to his ancestral roots. He knew that […]

First published: Candide: Ou, L’Optimisme, 1759 (English translation, 1759) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social satire Time of work: Eighteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh Castle Candideof Thunder-ten-tronckh. Castle in Westphalia of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, Candide’s presumed father, in which Candide is born and from which he […]

First published: 1897 First produced: 1897 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: 1894 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Hackney *Hackney. CandidaUnfashionable middle-class district in northeastern London; an unattractive place, with miles of unlovely brick houses, black iron railings, stony pavements, and gray slate-roofed buildings. Most houses have […]

First published: Rakovy korpus, 1968 (English translation, 1968) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1955-1956 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Ward Thirteen Ward Cancer WardThirteen. Ward for cancer patients in a hospital in the Soviet Union’s provincial city of Tashkent. The inauspicious nature of the ward’s […]

First published: Luotuo Xiangzi, 1936-1937 (serial), 1939 (book; English translation, 1945) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Naturalism Time of work: 1930’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Beijing (Peking) *Beijing Camel Xiangzi (Peking) (bay-zhing). Present-day and historical capital of China. At the time of Lao She’s story, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government […]

First published: 1852 as La Dame aux camélias (English translation, 1856) First produced: 1852 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Sentimental Time of work: Nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Paris *Paris. CamilleAlready the City of Light at the time Alexandre Dumas wrote this play, France’s capital city is the […]

First published: 1903 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: 1897 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Yukon River basin *Yukon Call of the Wild, TheRiver basin. Region of mountains, glaciers, forests, and rivers. This place was well known to Jack London, an eager participant in the Klondike gold […]

First published: 1934 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Bildungsroman Time of work: 1907-1913 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Ellis Island *Ellis Call It SleepIsland. Official processing center in New York Harbor, where, like thousands of other immigrants in 1907, David Schearl and his mother Genya first set foot in America. […]

First published: 1930 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social satire Time of work: Late 1920’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *London *London. Cakes and AleBritain’s great city, like New York and Paris, hosts the literary marketplace where Edward Driffield, perhaps the last of the great Victorian novelists, has risen from […]

First published: Things as They Are: Or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, 1794 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Detective and mystery Time of work: Eighteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Falkland’s Manor Falkland’s Caleb WilliamsManor. Country house of the intelligent and well-read English nobleman Ferdinando Falkland. This manor house […]

First published: 1951 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Bildungsroman Time of work: 1942-1945 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed USS Caine USS Caine Mutiny, TheCaine. U.S. Navy destroyer-minesweeper on which Willis Keith serves and grows from a spoiled and dependent youth to a battle-tested man. The Caine is not an impressive […]

First published: 1821 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: The period of Genesis Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Lands outside paradise Lands Cainoutside paradise. Complaining that his father has been tamed and his mother has forsaken the desire for knowledge that led to her exile from Eden, […]

First published: 1901 First produced: 1906 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: October, 48 b.c.e., to March, 47 b.c.e. Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Egypt *Egypt. Caesar and CleopatraNorth African country in which all the play’s action takes place. When Caesar led his Roman troops there in […]

First published: Unknown Type of work: Short fiction Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: Antiquity Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Phoenicia *Phoenicia Cadmus (fih-NEESH-ah). Homeland of the ancient Phoenicians, in the region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea now occupied by Syria and Lebanon. Cadmus, whose Phoenician name means […]

First published: 1607; revised, 1641 First produced: 1604 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: Sixteenth century Places Discussed Royal courts Royal Bussy d’Amboiscourts. In tribute to Queen Elizabeth of England, George Chapman has France’s King Henry III contrast the French and English courts. A place of dignity, decorum, and respect, […]

First published: 1955 First produced: 1955, at the The Music Box, New York City Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: 1950’s Places Discussed Kansas diner Kansas Bus Stopdiner. Dingy Kansas restaurant where long-haul buses make rest stops. All three acts of the play occur within this setting. The audience understands […]

First published: 1961 (first published in Swedish translation from manuscript, 1960) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Bildungsroman Time of work: Mid-twentieth century Places Discussed Leprosaria Leprosaria. Burnt-Out Case, ACongolese village located hundreds of miles inland from the provincial capital Matadi and loosely structured upon leper communities that Graham Greene had visited during his […]

First published: 1946 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1890 to the mid-1920’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Thornbrough Thornbrough. Bulwark, TheHome of the Barnes family near Dukla, Pennsylvania. The novel’s main character, Solon Barnes, is a native of Maine, where his father farmed and had […]

First published: 1969 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: Mid-twentieth century Places Discussed Bullet Park Bullet Bullet ParkPark. Suburban area of stately homes, manicured lawns interrupted by swimming pools, and the buzz of chain saws and lawn tractors. At the heart of the town is the train station where […]

First published: Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, 1901 (English translation, 1924) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Lübeck *Lübeck Buddenbrooks (LEW-behk). German city in which the novel is set. Although the novel does not identify the city by name, its […]

First published: c. 1205 Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Epic Time of work: c. 409-689 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *England *England. BrutProvides the overall setting for Brut, which is the story of the kings of England from the supposed first English king, Brut, through one of the most legendary […]

First published: Bratya Karamazovy, 1879-1880 (English translation, 1912) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: Nineteenth century Places Discussed Skotoprigonyevsk Skotoprigonyevsk Brothers Karamazov, The (sko-to-prihg-ON-ih-ehfsk). Russian town in which the Karamazovs’ home is located and the location of the worst debauchery commonly blamed on Fyodor Karamazov–the rape of the mentally […]

First published: Di brider Ashkenazi, 1936 (English translation, 1936) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Lodz *Lodz Brothers Ashkenazi, The (lewj). Industrial city in central Poland, about seventy-five miles southwest of Warsaw, in which the […]

First published: Medniy vsadnik, 1837 (English translation, 1899) Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: 1703 and 1824 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *St. Petersburg *St. Bronze Horseman, ThePetersburg. Russian city built by Peter the Great in which the poem’s entire narrative is set. Czar Peter moved […]

First published: 1811 as Der zerbrochene Krug (English translation, 1830) First produced: 1808 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: Late eighteenth century Places Discussed Huisum Huisum Broken Jug, The (HI-sum). Fictional Netherlands village, surrounded by cultivated fields, not far from the real city of Utrecht. Its occupants, who farm the […]

First published: El mundo es ancho y ajeno, 1941 (English translation, 1941) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1912-1926 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Andes *Andes. Broad and Alien Is the WorldGreat mountain range that runs through Peru and the other countries of South America’s west […]

First published: 1670 (English translation, 1714) First produced: 1669 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: 55 c.e. Places Discussed Néron’s palace Néron’s Britannicuspalace (nay-ROH[N]). Imperial palace in Rome within whose public area the tragedy takes place. In his preface to the play–which bears the name of Néron’s half-brother–Jean Racine wrote […]

First published: Na Drini ćuprija, 1945 (English translation, 1959) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: 1516-1914 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Drina River *Drina Bridge on the Drina, TheRiver (DREE-nah). Ancient river located entirely within Bosnia and Herzegovina that forms part of the boundary of the […]

First published: 1927 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Philosophical realism Time of work: Early eighteenth century Places Discussed Bridge of San Luis Rey Bridge Bridge of San Luis Rey, Theof San Luis Rey. Colonial Peru’s most famous bridge, an old rope suspension bridge in the region between Lima and Cuzco that collapsed on […]

First published: 1930 Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Epic Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Brooklyn Bridge *Brooklyn Bridge, TheBridge. Steel suspension bridge connecting New York City’s boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn that opened in 1883. Considered a masterpiece of modern architecture and engineering, it serves Crane’s poem as a symbol […]

First published: 1945 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Twentieth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Brideshead Manor Brideshead Brideshead RevisitedManor. Imposing English country estate of the Marchmain family where troops are to be quartered in the early days of World War II and the location […]

First published: 1819 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Gothic Time of work: Late seventeenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Ravenswood Castle Ravenswood Bride of Lammermoor, TheCastle. Gothic fortress occupying a significant pass in Lammermoor (or Lammermuir) Hills, which straddle the border between the counties of Berwickshire and East Lothian […]

First published: German translation, 1936 as Brot und Wein; Italian original, 1937 as Pane e vino; revision, 1955 as Vino e pane (English translation, 1962) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1930’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Abruzzi *Abruzzi Bread and Wine (ah-BREWT-see). Region of south-central […]

First published: 1932 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Dystopian Time of work: 632 years After Ford Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Great Britain *Great Brave New WorldBritain. In Huxley’s dystopian future, the British Isles are part of Western Europe, one of ten administrative divisions of the world supervised by resident […]

First published: 1866 (English translation, 1891) First produced: 1885 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Social criticism Time of work: Nineteenth century Places Discussed Ice church Ice Brandchurch. Naturally formed, domelike place of peace made entirely of ice that is the main setting of acts 1 and 5. Located high in an unspecified region […]

First produced: Miles gloriosus, c. 200 b.c.e. (English translation, 1767) Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: Third century b.c.e. Places Discussed Periplecomenus’s house Periplecomenus’s Braggart Soldier, Thehouse. Home of the old gentleman Periplecomenus in Ephesus, a Roman town in Asia Minor. The front of this house appears stage right (to […]

First published: serial, 1885-1886; book, 1886 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: 1870’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Boston *Boston. Bostonians, TheMassachusetts’s capital and leading city, known in this novel mainly as the city of reform and feminist views, which one character refers to as “Boston […]

First published: 1831 (English translation, 1918) First produced: 1870 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Historical Time of work: 1598-1605 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Moscow *Moscow. Boris GodunovRussia’s capital city in the period during which this play is set. Pushkin wrote the play during the period when he was exiled […]

First transcribed: Teseida, c. 1340-1341 (English translation, 1974) Type of work: Epic Type of plot: Romance Time of work: Antiquity Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Athens *Athens. Book of Theseus, TheBoccaccio’s mythologized version of the ancient Greek city, in which conflicts are resolved by heroic wisdom. It is to Athens that the […]

First published: c. 1370 Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Allegory Time of work: Indeterminate Places Discussed Narrator’s bedroom Narrator’s Book of the Duchessbedroom. The poet’s persona begins by describing the unhappiness in love that prevents his sleep. This introduces the story of Seyx and Alcione, the dead husband appearing to his beloved wife […]

First published: Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, c. 1405 (English translation, 1521, 1982) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Allegory Time of work: Early fifteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Paris *Paris. Book of the City of Ladies, TheFrance’s capital city and Christine’s home. Parisian society of her […]

First published: Le Livre du rire et de l’oubli, 1979 (English translation, 1980) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: 1948-1980 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Prague *Prague. Book of Laughter and Forgetting, TheCapital of Czechoslovakia, an Eastern European nation that was created after World War I, […]

First published: Scènes de la vie de Bohème, serial, 1847-1849; book, 1851 (English translation, 1901) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Sentimental Time of work: Mid-nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Latin Quarter *Latin Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, TheQuarter. District of Paris on the south bank of the Seine […]

First published: Bodas de sangre, 1935 (English translation, 1939) First produced: 1933 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: Early twentieth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Andalusia *Andalusia. Blood WeddingVast region of southern Spain that Lorca knew best and uses as the setting for many of his […]

First published: 1852 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: Mid-nineteenth century Places Discussed Unnamed city Unnamed Blithedale Romance, Thecity. Anonymous city representing the corruption of “civilization” from which the idealists who go to Blithedale come. For the affluent utopians (Coverdale and Zenobia), city life is soft and artificial, full […]

First produced: 1941, at Piccadilly Theatre, London First published: 1941 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Comedy Time of work: Late 1930’s Places Discussed Living room Living Blithe Spiritroom. Central room in the Condomines’ house in Kent in which the entire action of the play takes place. The home is situated somewhere between the […]

First published: 1972 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Bildungsroman Time of work: 1943 Places Discussed Guadalupe Guadalupe. Bless Me, UltimaSmall town in eastern New Mexico where Antonio lives. Tony’s family has moved from Las Pasturas (a smaller town where he was born) to Guadalupe, where he will spend these crucial years growing up. […]

First published: 1852-1853 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: Mid-nineteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Bleak House Bleak Bleak HouseHouse. Home of John Jarndyce, the novel’s elderly hero-benefactor, and his cousins Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, and ward, Summerson, the novel’s heroine. Situated in the […]

First published: 1936 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: 1800 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Richmond *Richmond. Black ThunderCapital city of Virginia, located in plantation country on the James River. At the time in which this novel is set, Richmond has a population of around six […]

First published: Die Betrogene, 1953 (English translation, 1954) Type of work: Novella Type of plot: Symbolism Time of work: 1920’s Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Düsseldorf *Düsseldorf. Black Swan, TheCity on the Rhine River in western Germany’s Ruhr region, which was the nation’s industrial heart in the 1920’s. At one point in […]

First published: 1888 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: Fifteenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Tunstall Forest *Tunstall Black Arrow, TheForest. Hardwood forest dotted with knolls and hollows and crossed by numerous dirt trails that lies in Suffolk, though the county is never named in the […]

First published: 1959 First produced: 1958, at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, England Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Absurdist Time of work: Mid-twentieth century Places Discussed Seaside town Seaside Birthday Party, Thetown. Unnamed coastal English town. Long popular with English vacationers, many English coastal towns featured amusement parks and other entertainments, along with public […]

First produced: Ornithes, 414 b.c.e. (English translation, 1824) Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Social satire Time of work: 431-404 b.c.e. Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Cloudcuckooland Cloudcuckooland. Birds, TheImaginary city-state of the birds, located in the sky and invented by Aristophanes, who set another play, The Frogs (405 b.c.e.), in […]

First published: 1924 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Symbolic realism Time of work: 1797 Places Discussed HMS Bellipotent HMS Billy Budd, ForetopmanBellipotent. Seventy-four-gun warship onto which seaman Billy Budd is impressed to serve in the British Navy. In earlier versions of the story, this ship is called the Indomitable. Both names suggest power […]

First published: 1939 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Detective and mystery Time of work: 1930’s Places Discussed Sternwood Mansion Sternwood Big Sleep, TheMansion. Los Angeles home of General Sternwood, which Chandler uses to represent money–the motivating factor in all the skullduggery that follows. General Sternwood is being blackmailed because he is known to […]

First published: 1947 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: 1830-1843 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Missouri River *Missouri Big Sky, TheRiver. Great river of the upper Midwest and northern Great Plains that provides the first stage of Caudill’s route to the West. It also serves as a […]

First published: 1943 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical realism Time of work: 1905-1932 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Whitemud Whitemud. Big Rock Candy Mountain, TheCanadian town, based on the real town of Eastend, in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada, where Stegner lived for about five years when he was a boy. […]

First published: 1941 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: June, 1939 Places Discussed Pointz Hall Pointz Between the ActsHall. Ancestral home of the Olivers in southern England. As the house bears a weight of historical symbolism, it needs to be seen clearly. It is middle-sized, as English manor houses […]

First published: I promessi sposi, 1827; revised, 1840-1842 (English translation, 1828; revised, 1951) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Historical Time of work: Seventeenth century Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Milan *Milan. Betrothed, TheNorthern Italian city that was a place of authoritarian rule and Spanish and Austrian domination during the seventeenth […]

First published: Berlin Alexanderplatz: Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf, 1929 (English translation, 1931) Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Social realism Time of work: 1927-1928 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Alexanderplatz *Alexanderplatz. Berlin AlexanderplatzLarge, central square in the east central part of Germany’s capital city, Berlin. During the late 1920’s in […]

First published: 1671 First produced: 1670 Type of work: Drama Type of plot: Tragedy Time of work: 79 c.e. Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed Titus’s palace Titus’s Bérénicepalace. Residence of Roman emperor Titus in Rome. Although such a place existed, the play’s action takes place entirely within a fictional chamber between the […]

First transcribed: c. 1000 (earliest extant manuscript; new translation by Seamus Heaney, 2000) Type of work: Poetry Type of plot: Epic Time of work: Sixth century Places Discussed Heorot Heorot Beowulf (HEH-oh-rot). Headquarters of the aging Danish ruler Hrothgar. The great timbered hall is elaborately described, for only here can human beings be, within limits, […]

First published: 1855, serial; collected in The Piazza Tales, 1856 Type of work: Novella Type of plot: Adventure Time of work: 1799 Asterisk denotes entries on real places. Places Discussed *Chile *Chile. Benito CerenoSouth American country off whose coast the American whaling ship Bachelor’s Rest encounters the Spanish slave ship San Dominick, whose slaves have […]

First published: 1979 Type of work: Novel Type of plot: Psychological realism Time of work: Early 1970’s Places Discussed River River. Bend in the River, AUnnamed river that connects the tropical African country’s interior to the outside world. It provides the major means for travel and transporting goods to the town in which the central […]