Literary Criticism

Penny Dreadfuls and the Gothic breaks new ground in uncovering penny titles which have been hitherto largely neglected from literary discourse revealing the cultural, social and literary significance of these working-class texts. The present volume is a...

This book is an appreciation of selected authors who make extensive use of humour in English detective/crime fiction. Works using humour as an amelioration of the serious have their heyday in the Golden Age of crime writing but they belong also to a...

Presentist Shakespeares is the first extended study of the principles and practice of 'presentism', a critical movement that takes account of the never-ending dialogue between past and present.In this bold and consistently thought-provoking collection of...

'The power of Shakespeare lies in his evidently conscious knowledge, skill and understanding of how to work with the alchemical potential in the human soul in the crafting of his plays. Each play is made as an exquisitely unique transformative device for...

Wales has a long history of interest in Palestine and Israel, and a close interest in Jews and Zionism. This monograph, the first to explore the subject, asks searching questions about the relationship that Wales has with the Israel-Palestine situation...

Reading Television was the first book to push the boundaries of television studies beyond the insights offered by cultural studies and textual analysis, creating a vibrant new field of study. Using the tools and techniques in this book, it is possible...

From the Great Fire of 1666 to the Blitz of the Second World War, from the building of the Tower of London to the building of Canary Wharf, London has always been much more than just a capital city. This anthology, edited by A. N. Wilson, reflects not...

The poem, which survives only in the Auchinleck Manuscript, deals with the later years of Guy's life, beginning with his return to Warwick after having established himself on the Continent as a pre-eminent model of knighthood. After his marriage,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780156030595Author Marion MeadeFormat PaperbackPage Count 368Imprint Mariner BooksPublisher Mariner Books

Adored by many, appalling to some, baffling still to others, few authors defy any single critical narrative to the confounding extent that James Baldwin manages. Was he a black or queer writer? Was he a religious or secular writer? Was he a spokesman for...

The English Gothic novel has recently attracted renewed attention by modern critics who have argued its importance as a mirror of late 18th-century discomfort with the political, psychological, and sexual climate of the times. Elizabeth Napier's work...

A new account of playgoing in Elizabethan England, in which audiences participated as much as performers. What if going to a play in Elizabethan England was more like attending a football match than a Broadway show-or playing in one? In Common...

This book's unique format makes it a versatile companion for a wide range of readers from the novice to the expert. The book is centered on 100 of Shakespeare's greatest dramatic images - at least one taken from each of his plays. They deal with the...

Science fiction and socialism have always had a close relationship. Many sf novelists and filmmakers are leftists. Others examine explicit or implicit Marxist concerns. As a genre, sf is ideally suited to critiquing the present through its...

In Dickinson's Nerves, Frost's Woods, William Logan, the noted and often controversial critic of contemporary poetry, returns to some of the greatest poems in English literature. He reveals what we may not have seen before and what his critical eye can...

This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trubner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its...

Re-Reading Sappho reflects the recent fascination with Sappho's "afterlife." The essays examine the changing interpretations of scholars and writers who have read the fragmentary remains of Sappho's poetry. As the contributors explore the ways that each...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781566566995Author Sahar KhalifehFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Interlink BooksPublisher Interlink Publishing Group, Inc

A Companion to Roman Rhetoric introduces the reader to the wide-ranging importance of rhetoric in Roman culture. A guide to Roman rhetoric from its origins to the Renaissance and beyondComprises 32 original essays by leading international...

The underground has been a dominant image of modern life since the late eighteenth century. A site of crisis, fascination, and hidden truth, the underground is a space at once more immediate and more threatening than the ordinary world above. In...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781666795547Author Landon LoftinFormat HardbackPage Count 126Imprint Cascade BooksPublisher Cascade BooksWeight(grams) 358gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm *...

This introduction to political parties in Britain offers an examination of the main parties' individual characteristics (including policy, organisation and support) and explains the impact of smaller parties. Key themes traced throughout the book are the...

Over the last decade, as Jane Austen has moved center-stage in our culture, onto best-seller lists and into movie houses, another figure has slipped into the spotlight alongside her. This is the "Janeite," the zealous reader and fan whose devotion to the...

What is a "Catholic" novel? This book analyzes the fiction of Graham Greene in a radically new manner, considering in depth its form and content, which rest on the oppositions between secularism and religion. Sampson challenges these distinctions,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9783039107278Author Sue NiebrzydowskiFormat PaperbackPage Count 239Imprint Verlag Peter LangPublisher Verlag Peter LangWeight(grams) 350g

Spanning many historical and literary contexts, Moral Imagination brings together a dozen recent essays by one of America's premier cultural critics. David Bromwich explores the importance of imagination and sympathy to suggest how these faculties may...

In the mid-nineteenth century, thirty-six expeditions set out for the Northwest Passage in search of Sir John Franklin's missing expedition. The array of visual and textual material produced on these voyages was to have a profound impact on the idea of...

British Decadent literature was a radical attack on conventional morality and middle-class taste, its insistence on the autonomy of art and its exploration of sexuality, dissipation, and depravity at odds with the literary and social establishment. Yet...

This edition presents all of the surviving manuscripts, together with textual apparatus and commentary. The poem is also presented in parallel with its principal source, Boccaccio's "Filostrato", enabling the reader to compare the two poems in charting...

Romantic Writings is an ideal introduction to the cultural phenomenon of Romanticism - one of the most important European literary movements and the cradle of 'Modern' culture. Here you will find an accessible introduction to the well-known male Romantic...

Prostitute, adulteress, unmarried woman who engages in sexual relations, victim of seduction-the Victorian "fallen woman" represents a complex array of stigmatized conditions. Amanda Anderson here reconsiders the familiar figure of the fallen woman...

Tropical Gothic examines Gothic within a specific geographical area of 'the South' of the Americas. In so doing, we structure the book around geographical coordinates (from North to South) and move between various national traditions of the gothic...

In the modern world, why do we still resort to speculation? Advances in scientific and statistical reasoning are supposed to have provided greater certainty in making claims about the future. Yet we constantly spin out scenarios about tomorrow, for...

The Cold of May Day Monday offers an indvidual view of the history of Irish literature from its very earliest phases up to the present day, more or less, with discussions of major writers such as Friel, Heaney, Derek Mahon, McGahern, and John Banville...

The influence of the Bible in Western culture is immeasurable, but these days few of us know much about it. Presenting concise and accessible introductions to the Bible's most important characters, stories and themes, this text encourages better...

My Cue to Fight is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth examination of how the greatest playwright in the English language employed not only psychological brutality but also physical violence throughout his works. Written ideally for...

This collection of readings on the concept of ideology is brought together by the Marxist critic, Terry Eagleton. His introduction traces the historical evolution of ideology and examines in a more theoretical style the various meanings of the word and...

Mimesis, with its connecting concepts of imitation, simile, and similarity, has been cited since classical times in the exploration of the relationship between art and reality. In this major study Arne Melberg discusses the theory and history of mimesis...

This casebook on D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers is the first to address itself to the full text of the novel, first published in 1992. The introduction discusses the novel's composition and the range of approaches adopted by critics since its original...

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology argues that the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of Saint John the Evangelist were so influential during the early modern period in England as to share with Pauline theology pride...