24601 has developed into being an iconic part of both the Les Miserables book and musical. Was that number special to him, or was it simply a random number he choose (I doubt it)

The only thing Vronsky loves more than Anna is Frou-Frou his horse. In the race he rides her to hard, her back breaks and she falls. He kicks her in a rage trying to get her up and then shoots her when he realises she can't. At the same time Anna breaks down and loses all sense of propriety. La...

I remember, when I was in middle school, reading a series of mystery books. The titles were of the format 'X and Y', where X was a type of gemstone, and X and Y began with the same letter. As far as more specific details, I'm afraid I don't remember much. I know that there were at least 4 book...

I've been reading The Pilgrim's Progress - an allegory for the Christian life written by John Bunyan while in prison for his religious beliefs. This passage follows directly after Christian's encounter with the cross: Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, "He h...

I just noticed that we have an allegory tag (2 questions) as well as the symbolism tag (75 questions). Do we need both of these tags, and if so, what's the difference between them and how do we make this clear? (Since the allegory tag is hardly used at all, I could have simply edited it out and ...

I'm re-reading The Brothers Karamazov and was struck again by a strange scene whose meaning isn't immediately clear to me. In "Lyagavy", Part 3, Book 8, Chapter 2 of The Brothers Karamazov, Mitya rushes to Tchermashnya at the underhanded suggestion of Samsonov, in a desperate attempt to come up ...

I'm trying to find a book I recall from my childhood, but details are sparse. For an upper bound on release, I would have read this ~1990-1995. The only detail that really stands out is that towards the end, there are a couple children (and possibly the older man / scientist type) in the baseme...