Literary Criticism

The enormous popular appeal of Philip Larkin's poetry has long been established; but oddly little is known to his admiring public about the personality behind the work.The Selected Letters will change this, throwing light on a more complex, and in many...

Recent decades have seen a major expansion in our understanding of how early Greek lyric functioned in its social, political, and ritual contexts, and the fundamental role song played in the day-to-day lives of communities, groups, and individuals has...

Other early 'stand-out' roles came in the premieres of Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine (1979) and Mike Leigh's Goose Pimples (1981). He was Malcolm Bradbury's History Man on TV (1981) before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982, where he has played...

'Delightful . . . an original look at the literature inspired by Britain's birdlife' the Guardian, Best Nature Books of 2017'[The] pages light up with feathered magic' Evening StandardWhen Alex Preston was 15, he stopped being a birdwatcher. Adolescence...

Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain offers a new approach to the cultural history of contemporary Spain, examining the ways in which Spain's own self-conceptions are changing and multiplying in...

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years...

Moominpappa's Book of Thoughts is a collection of philosophical anecdotes and other profound insights from the most senior Moomin, providing readers with an essential roadmap on how to go about life. During his long and eventful life, Moominpappa has...

Fifteen short, accessible essays exploring the most important topics and themes in John Milton's masterpiece, Paradise Lost. The essays invite readers to begin their own independent exploration of the poem by equipping them with useful background...

Terry Eagleton looks back across sixty years to an extraordinary critical milieu that transformed the study of literature Before the First World War, traditional literary scholarship was isolated from society at large. In the years following, a younger...

Discover one of the best cities in the world through the lens of some of the most iconic writers who have ever lived. London has long inspired and celebrated books and writing, and some of the most well-known and beloved names in English Literature have...

In recent years, queer theory appears to have made a materialist turn away from questions of representation and performativity to those of dispossession, precarity, and the differential distribution of life chances. Despite this shift, queer theory finds...

Colm Toibin's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9782080281876Author Damien MacDonaldFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint FlammarionPublisher Editions FlammarionWeight(grams) 720g

Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning 'meeting place'. Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486267128Author Eugenio FloritFormat PaperbackPage Count 160Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.Weight(grams)...

This innovative critical volume brings the study of Margery Kempe into the twenty-first century. Structured around four categories of 'encounter' - textual, internal, external and performative - the volume offers a capacious exploration of The Book of...

'It was early in a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, having occasion to go towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which travel...

Egil's Saga tells the story of the long and brutal life of tenth-century warrior-poet and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson: a morally ambiguous character who was at once the composer of intricately beautiful poetry, and a physical grotesque capable of...

The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance is a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on Shakespeare and performance studies by an international team of leading scholars. It contains chapters on the key methods and...

Inspired new translations of the work of one of the world's greatest fabulistsTold in an elegant style, Jean de la Fontaine's (1621-95) charming animal fables depict sly foxes and scheming cats, vain birds and greedy wolves, all of which subtly express...

A breathtaking new collection of translations of poems by Rumi, one of the world's most loved mystical teachers and bestselling poets. Beautifully packaged and illustrated with paintings and Persian calligraphy, this is an ideal gift. ...

Graham Greene's 'long journey through time' began in 1904, when he was born into a tribe of Greenes based in Berkhamstead at the public school where his father was headmaster. In A Sort of Life Greene recalls schooldays and Oxford, adolescent encounters...

'Tell me, Muse, of the man of many turns, who was driven far and wide after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy' Twenty years after setting out to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus is yet to return home to Ithaca. His household is in disarray: a...

This is a new translation into contemporary English of one of the greatest poems of the English Middle Ages. Piers Plowman remains of enduring interest for its vivid picture of the whole life of medieval society, for its deeply imaginative religious...

This book looks at witnesses to suffering and death in ancient Greek epic (Homer's Iliad) and tragedy. Internal spectators abound in both genres, and have received due scholarly attention. The present monograph covers new ground by dealing with a...

From Voltaire to Verlaine and from Hugo to Hemingway, these are the Paris locations that have influenced modern literature. The book is an elegant photographic stroll around the bookshops, famous literary restaurants and storied streets of...

First published in July 1850, shortly after Wordsworth's death, The Prelude was the culmination of over fifty years of creative work. The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, it takes as its theme 'the growth of a poet's mind': leading the reader...

This textbook is endorsed by OCR and supports the specification for GCSE Classical Civilisation (first teaching September 2017). It covers the Thematic Study Component 12 and all three Literature and Culture options (Components 21-23): Thematic Study:...

The Condition of Secrecy is a poignant collection of essays by Inger Christensen, widely regarded as one of the most influential Scandinavian writers of the twentieth century. As The New York Times proclaimed, "Despite the rigorous structure that...

The text of the Fourth Edition of the Norton Critical Edition of Emma is based on the 1816 edition published by John Murray. George Justice has lightly and judiciously emended the text for faithfulness and clarity. The novel is accompanied by detailed...

Correspondence from a distinguished and eventful life.The Younger Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62, the son of Lucius Caecilius of Comum (Como) and the Elder Pliny's sister. He was educated at home and then in Rome under Quintilian. He was at Misenum at...

For decades, Janet Malcolm's books and dispatches for the New Yorker have poked and prodded at biographical convention, gesturing towards the artifice that underpins both public and private selves. Here, Malcolm turns her gimlet eye on her own life,...

What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the...

Few, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that Russia's outstanding writers and philosophers had on its culture. In...

The "Father of History."Herodotus the great Greek historian was born about 484 BC, at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject to the Persians. He traveled widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt (as far as Aswan), North Africa, Syria, the...

Unruly Times is a superlative portrait of the relationship between Wordsworth and Coleridge, and a fascinating exploration of the Romantic Movement and the dramatic events that shaped it. With a novelist's insight and eye for detail, A. S. Byatt brings...

This book is at once an edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets and a guide to how to read these exquisite and complex poems. It is designed both for readers new to the poems and for those who are familiar with the Sonnets but are ready to engage with them...

In Ulysses and Us, Declan Kiberd argues that James Joyce's Ulysses offers a humane vision of a more tolerant and decent life under the dreadful pressures of the modern world. As much a guide to contemporary life as it is virtuoso work of literary...

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1925 first American edition text of the novel.A full introduction, a note on the text and explanatory annotations by David J. Alworth.An unusually rich selection of contextual materials, including Fitzgerald's...

There have been many great and enduring works of literature by Caribbean authors over the last century. The Caribbean Contemporary Classics collection celebrates these deep and vibrant stories, overflowing with life and acute observations about society...