Pollyanna Pollyanna Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook: a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, "Pollyanna Grows Up" (1915). Eleven more "Pollyanna" sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including "Pollyanna Plays the Game" by Colleen L. Reece,
What Is to Be Done? (novel) What Is to Be Done? (novel) What Is To Be Done? (; also translated as What Shall We Do? and literally translated as "What To Do?") is an 1863 novel written by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky. It was written in response to "Fathers and Sons" (1862) by Ivan Turgenev. The chief character is a woman, Vera Pavlovna, who escapes the control of her family and an arranged marriage to seek economic independence. The novel advocates the creation of small socialist cooperatives based on the Russian peasant commune, but oriented toward industrial production. The author promoted