Literary Criticism

For at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian, poet and lover, his story never leaves us. He may be myth, but his lyre still sounds, entrancing everything that hears...

Queer Cambridge recounts the untold story of a gay community living, for many decades, at the very heart of the British Establishment. Making effective use of chiefly forgotten archival sources - including personal diaries and letters - the author...

All Dylan Thomas' major works gathered together and featuring a bold new livery in celebration of the Dylan Thomas centenary.A rich collection of Dylan Thomas' best-loved poems and stories, such as PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG, and pieces he...

If you've ever wanted to know more about the power of 'P', the hypnotic rhythm of anapestic tetrameter, or how to change the mood of a verb, then look no further. If you've ever needed to catch a red herring, wield a zeugma, deepen your pathos or...

Dazzling modern lyrical poems from Catullus - by turns smutty, abusive, romantic and deeply moving.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics,...

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was this century's first modern woman. She arrived in Paris around 1900 as the provincial child bride of a notorious rake and brilliant literary impressario, Willy, who signed her first novels, the Claudines, as his own. They...

The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold,...

For this new edition, first published in 1971, Ted Hughes augmented his original selection of Shakespeare's poems and dramatic speeches and completely rewrote his accompanying essay, intending to restore to the common reader much of what, in Shakespeare,...

ONE OF THE WHITE REVIEW'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019Elizabeth Hardwick's iconic essay collection Seduction and Betrayal is a radical portrait of women and literature, reissued with a new introduction by Deborah Levy.'Hardwick's sentences are burned in my brain.'...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781853997174Author Stephen AndersonFormat PaperbackPage Count 192Imprint Bristol Classical PressPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLCWeight(grams)...

Making a major part of England's literary heritage accessible to a new audience, Peter Ackroyd's The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling renders Geoffrey Chaucer's timeless tales in lucid, compelling modern English prose, with illustrations by Nick Bantock in...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781419670138Author Dr Edward C ChangFormat PaperbackPage Count 448Imprint Booksurge PublishingPublisher Booksurge PublishingWeight(grams) 653gDimensions(mm)...

An exploration of the ideas, groupings and the social tensions that shaped the transformation of life caused by the changes of modernity in art, science, politics and philosophyBook InformationISBN 9780140138320Author James McFarlaneFormat PaperbackPage...

'If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.' The Well of Loneliness is among the most famous banned books in history. A pioneering work of literature, Radclyffe Hall's novel charts the development of a...

Complete collection of Tolkien's essays, including two on Beowulf, which span three decades beginning six years before The Hobbit to five years after The Lord of the Rings. The seven 'essays' by J.R.R. Tolkien assembled in this new paperback...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780573111020Author Richard BeanFormat PaperbackPage Count 98Imprint Samuel French LtdPublisher Samuel French Ltd

Based on a comprehensive investigation of all manuscripts and florilegia, this edition provides, for the first time, a secure reconstruction of the two hyparchetypes on which the text depends. Zwierlein demonstrates that all former manuscripts of...

Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this, the last book he completed before his death, the much-loved poet, broadcaster and author offers a selection of his favourite poems and a personal commentary on each.In the...

The global turmoil of the late 1980s and early 1990s severely tested every analyst and commentator. Few wrote with such insight as Christopher Hitchens about the large events - or with such discernment and wit about the small tell-tale signs of a...

The final volume in this brilliant translation destined to take its place among the great English versions of The Divine Comedy. In his translation of Paradise, Mark Musa exhibits the same sensitivity to language and knowledge of translation that enabled...

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) is among the most brilliant critics and essayists to have ever written in the English language. Combative and insightful, he was close to two generations of romantic poets. His early friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and...

Pippi Longstocking is nine years old. She has just moved into Villa Villekulla where she lives all by herself with a horse, a monkey, and a big suitcase full of gold coins. The grown-ups in the village try to make Pippi behave in ways that they think a...

The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft is the acclaimed bestselling biography by Claire TomalinWinner of the Whitbread First Book PrizeWitty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day. She...

This book offers a revaluation of Keats' major poetry. It reveals how Keats' work is both an oblique criticism of the dominant attitudes to literature, sexuality, religion and politics in his period, and a powerful critique of the claims of the...

For the first time, John Drury convincingly integrates the life and poetry of George Herbert, giving us in Music at Midnight the definitive biography of the man behind some of the most famous poems in the English Language.'Love bade me welcome . . ...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781400096220Author Howell D. ChickeringFormat PaperbackPage Count 464Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 397gDimensions(mm)...

The Duchess of Malfi is one of the major tragedies of the early modern period and remains popular in the theatre as well as in the classroom. The story of the Duchess's secret marriage and the cruel revenge of her brothers has fascinated and appalled...

Hamlet's combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare's tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays. Professor Hibbard's illuminating and original...

A phenomenonally precicious schoolboy, Rimbaud was still a teenager when he became notorious as Europe's most shocking and exhilarating poet. During his brief 5-year reign as the enfant terrible of French literature he produced an extraordinary body of...

The complete collection, first published in 1952 with exquisite illustrations by the celebrated artist Philippe Jullian, republished in a beautiful giftable edition. For nearly 150 years, the classic fairy stories of Oscar Wilde have been cherished by...

Robin Lane Fox's Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer proposes a new way of thinking about ancient Greeks, showing how real-life journeys shaped their mythical tales. The tales of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for...

This first full-length biography of Anglo- American poet and activist Denise Levertov (1923-1997) brings to life one of the major voices of the second half of the twentieth century, when American poetry was a powerful influence worldwide. Drawing on...

Ever wondered about how to really interpret poetry? Puzzled about metre, rhyming and stanzas? Presented in language thoroughly accessible for all, poet and writer Ruth Padel demystifies poetic style, structure and meaning in this comprehensive anthology...

She sees, coming up a second time, earth from the ocean, eternally green; the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them, over the mountain hunting fish. After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean,...

Humans have long turned to gardens - both real and imaginary - for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. With "Gardens", Robert Pogue Harrison graces readers with a thoughtful, wide-ranging examination of the many ways gardens evoke...

In this Readers' Guide, Nicolas Tredell introduces and sets in context the key critical debates surrounding a novel about which more critical material exists than any other work of American fiction. The extracts and essays included here reflect on The...

T. S. Eliot is regarded as the most important poet-critic of modern times, the twentieth century's 'Man of Letters' whose reputation was forged not only on the strength of his verse, but on the enduring influence of his critical writings. The Collected...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780988689596Author David R ThorneFormat PaperbackPage Count 270Imprint 27bslash6Publisher 27bslash6Weight(grams) 308gDimensions(mm) 203mm * 133mm * 15mm

Published twenty years ago, Leela Gandhi's Postcolonial Theory was a landmark description of the field of postcolonial studies in theoretical terms that set its intellectual context alongside poststructuralism, postmodernism, Marxism, and feminism...

This is a story of depression a condition that reduced William Styron from a person enjoying life and success as an acclaimed writer, to a man engulfed and menaced by mental anguish. With profound insight and remarkable candor, Styron tracks the progress...