A Literary Look Back at 1920

Mark Schenker will lead four discussions of great literary works, across a range of genres (mystery novel, poetry, short story, novel), that will mark their 100th anniversary in 2020. We will consider how these works comment on the First World War, the role of women in 20th-century society (both the UK and the US approved women suffrage in the 1920’s), and the continued rise of literary modernism

Feb 18             Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Christie’s first mystery novel and the debut of Hercule Poirot, her celebrated Belgian detective

Mar 17             T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917) and “Gerontion” (1920)

Two of the greatest poems from Eliot’s early period

Apr 21            Katherine Mansfield, “Bliss” (1918) and “The Garden Party” (1922)

Mansfield wrote these two powerful stories while she was seriously ill from TB, which would take her life in 1923, at the age of 34

May 19            Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920)

For this novel which is set in the 1870’s, Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, becoming the first woman to do so