Rousing reads: ten books that caused a literary revolution

Candide (1759), Voltaire

Voltaire’s searing satirical writings on French society earned him temporary exile and stints in the Bastille prison. A versatile and prolific writer, the Enlightenment philosopher wrote in various forms from poetry to plays to novels. Out of a busy schedule that produced an estimated 20,000 letters and 2000 books, Voltaire took just three days to write his famous novella Candide. In this picaresque story, the eponymous protagonist falls hard and fast from the Edenic paradise of Westphalia. A cautionary tale on the dangers of optimism and the “best of all possible worlds”.

Émile (1762), Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Genevan writer and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a major influence in the French Revolution, with his work helping to shape the policies and politics of modern France. At the heart of his beliefs was an emphasis on education and its power to steer individuals away from corruption. His novel Émile is a treatise on the nature of education and its value to the common citizen. Publicly burned the year it was published, Émile was the inspiration of a new national education system for France.

A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Charles Dickens

With over 200 million copies sold, A Tale of Two Cities is one of literature’s most popular works. Set in London and Paris around the time of the French Revolution, the novel portrays the plight of the lower classes at the hands of a cruel and greedy aristocracy. Dickens’s 45-chapter novel also contains one of the most famous opening lines in literature: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Das Kapital (1867), Karl Marx

Karl Marx’s criticism of political economy and capitalism is centred around his theories on labour power, the capacity to do work. According to the German economist, society hinges on the way in which this power is combined with means of production. A founding father of sociology, Marx’s books The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867) have had a profound effect on global politics and economics.

The Princess Casamassima (1886), Henry James

With its overtly political themes and plot, The Princess Casamassima stands out in the Jamesian canon. The illegitimate son of an aristocrat and a working-class girl, Hyacinth Robinson is orphaned when his mother dies in prison after killing her lover. Confused and alone, he takes up a radical political cause as young man, meeting along the way likeminded individuals such as the beautiful titular princess. As he travels and experiences more of the world, Hyacinth comes to regret his radical views.

The Informer (1925), Liam O’Flaherty

A tale of betrayal and reprisal, Liam O’Flaherty’s The Informer won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize the year it was published. Set in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War, it tells the story of Gypo Nolan, a former policeman turned revolutionary who divulges the whereabouts of his friend Frankie McPhillip to the police and subsequently finds himself hunted for the betrayal. Born on Inis Mór, O’Flaherty was a prominent figure in the Irish literary renaissance and many of his novels were republished following his death in 1984.

Guests of the Nation (1931), Frank O’Connor

Guests of the Nation is the title story of Frank O'Connor’s short fiction collection of the same name and tells of the execution of two Englishmen during the War of Independence. Split into four sections, the narrative looks at the complex relationships between prisoners and their guards, flitting between the interior and exterior conflicts that entrap the characters. The Irish revolution is the theme or setting for many of the collection’s stories, which combine to form an insightful study of war and a country that was beginning to turn on itself.

Animal Farm (1945), George Orwell

“Four legs good, two legs bad.” Published the year the second World War ended, Orwell’s allegory on the Russian Revolution and Stalinist era offers a masterful depiction of the dangers of power. According to his essay Why I Write (1946), the British author created the world of Manor Farm "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole". After the animals rise up, Manor Farm becomes Animal Farm, but in the hands of pig leaders Napoleon and Snowball, inequality and oppression soon replace revolutionary ideals.

The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir

A major work of twentieth century philosophy, The Second Sex examines the treatment and oppression of women by society down through the centuries. Heralding the dawn of second-wave feminism, the book is a meticulously researched tome divided into two volumes, Facts and Myths and Lived Experience.  De Beauvoir’s central theory is that men subjugate women by characterising them as ‘other’. Man is the self or subject, with woman cast in the role of object or other.

The Catcher in the Rye (1951), JD Salinger

Materialism, superficiality and a flawed education system are satirised by Salinger’s protagonist Holden Caulfield, who sees phonies in all facets of American society. An icon of teenage rebellion, Caulfield has appealed to generations of adolescents all over the world, who find in the book’s maligned hero a voice of alienation and revolt. An older incarnation of Holden exists in Salinger’s short story ‘Slight Rebellion off Madison’, which was published by the New Yorker in 1946.