These books describe the adventures of boyhood. Huck is a portrait of a frontier boy. He runs away because he is afraid that Aunt Sally will adopt him and civilise him, he is free and reminded free till the end of the book. He also took some inspiration from English history and wrote the well-known satire. He also took some inspiration from English history and wrote the well-known satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
2) 20th century
Upton Sinclair – the best novel is The Jungle and it is about working conditions in the Chicago slaughterhouse and living conditions of immigrants, whose labour is cheap.
Jack London – became very popular due to describing adventurous life at the time of the gold rush. His great novel is called The Call of the Wild.
After the WWI a group of writers known as the “Lost Generation” entered literature. They were influenced by the war, their experience resulted in disillusionment.
Ernst Hemingway – was awarded Nobel Prize for his famous book The Old Man and the Sea, which is about human strength for fighting both external natural things and bad sides of his character (“A man can be destroyed but not defeated”). After WWI Hemingway became a journalist. Among his best novels belong A Farewell to Arms – it is about WWI. It is a love story of an American boy served in the Italian Ambulance Service and an English nurse. Another famous novel is For Whom the Bell Tolls, and it is a picture from Spanish Civil War. Other novels are: Fiesta, Death in the Afternoon, A moveable Feast, Island in the Stram. Hemingway is a master in short story writing. He committed a suicide – shot himself.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald – is connected with the Jazz Age of the 20s. He wrote many stories about wealthy people, for whom everything is so easy because of money. His best novel is Great Gatsby. It is about a very rich man who earns all his money by smuggling. Hi is doing this because he wants to be on the same level as Daisy, his former lover. As Ernst Hamingway, also he committed a suicide (with pills).
William Faulkner – was awarded Nobel Prize. He wrote a cycle of novels dealing with all possible problems of the South: Light in August, As I Lay Dying.
John Steinbeck – won a Nobel Prize in literature. He tried to uncover the reasons of social injustice. His best novel is The Grapes of Wrath. It is a picture of a poor family, which is exploited by the fruit-growers in California. He was also playwriter. His famous play called Of Mice and Men.