PearsonEdexcel IGCSE
English Literature Set Texts
Every novel and play on the syllabus, with a summary of each. Open one for the full study guide.
An Inspector Calls
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
An Inspector Calls (written 1945, set in 1912) is a three-act drama by J B Priestley. The entire play takes place in the dining room of the Birling family home in the fictional industrial city of Brumley, in the North Midlands, on a single evening in spring 1912. The prosperous manufacturer Arthur Birling is...
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Great Expectations
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel, first published in weekly instalments in his journal All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. It is a first-person Bildungsroman: the story of the orphan Pip, who grows from a frightened child on the Kent marshes into a young gentleman in London,...
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Klara and the Sun
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Klara and the Sun (2021) is narrated by Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend (AF) designed to be a companion for children. Set in a near-future America where genetic editing divides society, Klara is chosen by Josie, a teenager whose illness stems from the process of 'lifting' that was meant to give her...
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Macbeth
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Macbeth (written about 1606) is Shakespeare's shortest and most concentrated tragedy. It follows a Scottish general, Macbeth, who receives a prophecy from three witches that he will become King of Scotland. Driven by ambition and spurred on by his wife, Lady Macbeth, he murders the reigning King Duncan and claims the...
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Pride and Prejudice
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's most celebrated novel, first published in 1813. It follows the Bennet family, particularly the spirited and intelligent second daughter Elizabeth Bennet, as she navigates the pressures of the Regency marriage market. When the wealthy Mr Darcy arrives in the neighbourhood,...
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Romeo and Juliet
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Romeo and Juliet (written about 1595) is Shakespeare's most celebrated love tragedy. It tells the story of two young people from feuding families in Verona - Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet - who fall in love at first sight, marry in secret, and are destroyed by the hatred that surrounds them. Their deaths finally...
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The Merchant of Venice
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
The Merchant of Venice (written around 1596-1597) is one of Shakespeare's most debated plays, classified sometimes as a comedy and sometimes as a problem play. It interweaves two main plots: the bond between the merchant Antonio and the Jewish moneylender Shylock, and the romantic quest of Bassanio to win the hand of...
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The Scarlet Letter
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
The Scarlet Letter (1850) is Nathaniel Hawthorne's most celebrated novel and a foundational work of American literature. Set in the Puritan colony of Boston in the 1640s, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' on her breast as punishment for adultery. The novel traces...
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is Harper Lee's landmark American novel, set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression (roughly 1933-1935). It is narrated by Jean Louise 'Scout' Finch, who looks back on three formative years of childhood. Two storylines interweave: the children's obsession...
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Anthology Poems (Part 3)
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set poetry - complete study and revision guide
Part 3 of the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology is the set poetry collection for the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) qualification. It contains 16 poems spanning over two centuries, from William Blake's 'The Tyger' (1794) and John Keats's 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' (1819)...
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A View from the Bridge
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
A View from the Bridge (1955, revised 1956) is a two-act tragedy by Arthur Miller, set in the Italian-American community of Red Hook, Brooklyn, during the 1950s. The longshoreman Eddie Carbone lives with his wife Beatrice and her orphaned niece Catherine, whom he has raised as his own daughter. When Beatrice's cousins...
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Death and the King's Horseman
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Death and the King's Horseman (1975) is a five-scene play by the Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. It is based on events that took place in Oyo, an ancient Yoruba city in Nigeria, in 1946. The King (the Alafin) has died, and his chief horseman, Elesin Oba, is expected to perform a ritual suicide to accompany his...
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Of Mice and Men
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Of Mice and Men (1937) is John Steinbeck's novella about two displaced migrant ranch workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who move from place to place in Depression-era California searching for work and dreaming of owning their own piece of land. The title is taken from Robert Burns's poem 'To a Mouse': 'The best...
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The Joy Luck Club
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
The Joy Luck Club (1989) is Amy Tan's debut novel, a mosaic of sixteen interconnected stories told by four Chinese-born mothers and their four American-born daughters. The mothers - Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong and Ying-ying St. Clair - emigrated from China to San Francisco in the years following the Second World...
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The Whale Rider
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
The Whale Rider (1987, revised 2003) is a novel by Witi Ihimaera set in Whangara, a small Maori coastal settlement on the East Coast of New Zealand. It tells the story of Kahu (Kahutia Te Rangi), the eldest great-grandchild of chief Koro Apirana, who is rejected by her grandfather because she is female. According to...
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Things Fall Apart
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Things Fall Apart (1958) is Chinua Achebe's debut novel and one of the most widely read works of African literature. Set in the Igbo villages of southeastern Nigeria in the late nineteenth century, it tells the story of Okonkwo, a proud warrior and prosperous farmer whose life is shaped by his determination to be...
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Western Lane
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) set text - complete study and revision guide
Western Lane (2023) is Chetna Maroo's debut novel, narrated by eleven-year-old Gopi, the youngest of three sisters in a British-Gujarati family. After their mother's death, their father, Pa, channels his grief into an intensive squash-training regime at the local sports centre, Western Lane. The novel follows Gopi's...
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