Reflections on Literature: Exploring Meanings and Messages is a series of essays about literature intended for the general reader. These essays are arranged in five separate volumes from British and American novels, poetry, and drama, and they include such authors as William Blake, Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, and many others. There are discussions about what literature teaches us about growing up and growing old, about love and friendships. The novels of Pat Conroy and Louise Penny are also examined. Volume I: The Modern Novel from the Roaring Twenties to the Mythic West focuses on such writers as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Orwell, as well as a discussion of myths about the American West.

About the Author

Robert Van Dellen began his professional career as a professor of literature and ended it as the president of a college. He has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses, written scripts for several feature-length videos, which included working with Curt Gowdy and Roy Rogers. He has conducted numerous workshops, seminars, and talks. His lifelong passion for literature is exhibited by the Lectures on Literature Series for the Elliott Museum in Stuart, Florida. He earned his PhD in Literature, served as the founding executive director of a community foundation, and ran a business consulting firm for several years. He and his wife live half of the year on a lake in northern Michigan and the other months in Florida. He enjoys travel, especially to visit his nine grandchildren. He loves playing pickle ball, and was an avid backpacker and wilderness canoeist.