Literary Criticism

'I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination' - Keats, in a letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey in November 1817.In a period of great letter-writing, Keats's letters are outstanding. They begin in...

This book will change your life. The Deeper Meaning of Liff is a specially updated edition of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's humorous lexicon of things there should be words for. A beloved classic, The Deeper Meaning of Liff contains illustrations from...

In an essay of prophetic vision, Lukacs defines a critical realism: 'anyone who wants to become more intimately acquainted with the prehistory of the important ideologies of the [nineteen-] twenties and thirties ...will be helped by a critical reading of...

Kenneth Waltz's 1979 Theory of International Politics is credited with bringing about a "scientific revolution" in the study of international relations - bringing the field into a new era of systematic study. The book is also a lesson in reasoning...

Numerous books have attempted to chronicle the life of Dante Alighieri, yet essential questions remain unanswered. How did this self-taught Florentine become the celebrated author of the Divine Comedy? Was his exile from Florence so extraordinary? How...

In this remarkable little book, Will Durant answers the questions that most people would have wanted to ask him - what are the conclusions he drew from the experience of a long lifetime; what eras, individuals, and achievements stand out as being the...

The author of Free the Tipple is back with another collection of delectable cocktails-this time a literary mix inspired by the world's most iconic women writers. The fifty recipes in this volume are as unconventional, imaginative, and refreshing as...

Latin is very much alive in the poetry written by the great Latin poets, and this book is about their poetry, their language, and their culture. Fitzgerald shows the reader with little or no knowledge of the Latin language how it works as a unique...

On publication Arundhati Roy's first novel The God of Small Things (1997) rapidly became an international bestseller, winning the Booker Prize and creating a new space for Indian literature and culture within the arts, even as it courted controversy and...

Cynthia Griffin Wolff's brilliant literary biography of Emily Dickinson is the first to unravel the intricate relationship between her life and her poetry. It is a vivid portrait of the poet and her times as well as a fascinating interpretive study of...

It may not be the longest, deepest or widest river in the world but few bodies of water reveal as much about a nation's past and present, or are suggestive of its future, as England's River Thames. Tales of legendary lock-keepers and long-vanished weirs...

How does Shakespeare's treatment of human sexuality relate to the sexual conventions and language of his times? Pre-eminent Shakespearean critic Stanley Wells draws on historical and anecdotal sources to present an illuminating account of sexual...

Can you tell an iamb from a trochee? An anapest from an amphibrach? Why do children always take such delight in dactylic tetrameter? Is a ballad the same as a ballade, and what is poetic rhythm? In this neat little book, Scottish poet Octavia Wynne...

These days, entertainers no longer just entertain: they advocate dubious 'religions', work for the United Nations, get face-time with heads of state and monopolise problems they are infinitely qualified to solve - problems like Africa, the Middle East,...

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...

This volume introduces readers to classical Chinese literature from its beginnings (ca. 10th century BCE) to the tenth century CE. It asks basic questions such as: How did reading and writing practices change over these two millennia? How did concepts of...

With these words, Washington Irving expresses the dilemma of every American artist in the nineteenth century. The Sketch-Book (1820-1) looks simultaneously towards audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, as Irving explores the uneasy relationship of an...

An essay with the reach and momentum of a novel, Kate Briggs's This Little Art is a genre-bending song for the practice of literary translation, offering fresh, fierce and timely thinking on reading, writing and living with the works of others. Taking...

A practical approach to breaking through the barriers of restraint and incomprehension when faced with Shakespeare. Taking many of the techniques explored in her international bestseller Freeing The Natural Voice, in this companion volume Kristin...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781911187196Author Zachary SeagerFormat PaperbackImprint Connell GuidesPublisher CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD

George Orwell left post-war London for Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the Isle of Jura, to write what became Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was driven by a passionate desire to undermine the enemies of democracy and make plain the dangers of dictatorship,...

Kempe's work is accompanied by an introduction, a map of medieval England, a Kempe lexicon, and explanatory annotations. "Contexts" collects primary readings that illuminate The Book of Margery Kempe. Included are excerpts from The Constitutions of...

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) remains one of the best loved of the great English poets. Hardy thought of himself as a poet all his life, although his poetic career only flowered after he had retired from novel-writing in his mid-fifties. Over the next...

Sylvia Plath was one of the most gifted and innovative poets of the twentieth century, yet serious study of her work has often been hampered by a fierce preoccupation with her life and death. Tim Kendall seeks to redress the balance in his detailed and...

Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) has long been recognised as one of her outstanding achievements and one of the canonical works of modernist fiction. Each generation of readers has found something new within its pages, which is reflected in its...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781646422999Author Ben LeemingFormat PaperbackPage Count 274Imprint University Press of ColoradoPublisher University Press of ColoradoWeight(grams) 152g

Throughout his long career, Jacques Derrida had a close, collaborative relationship with "Critical Inquiry" and its editors. He saved some of his most important essays for the journal, and he relished the ensuing arguments and polemics that stemmed from...

A fascinating and exhilarating look at the many ways we love, and are loved. Following on from his bestselling The History of Wales in Twelve Poems, M. Wynn Thomas turns his attention in A Map of Love to poems from Wales and reflects on what they...

'A writer of genius' - William DalrympleCan anyone really own a culture? This magnificent account argues that the story of global civilisations is one of mixing, sharing, and borrowing.It shows how art forms have crisscrossed continents over centuries to...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781632062260Author Ilan StavansFormat PaperbackPage Count 528Imprint Restless BooksPublisher Restless Books

What does it mean to create, not in "a room of one's own" but in a domestic space? Do children and genius rule each other out? In The Baby on the Fire Escape, award-winning biographer Julie Phillips traverses the shifting terrain where motherhood and...

Tradition, translation, and transcription in Henrician verse functioned together in systems of communally created, coded position-taking. Understanding this system as an extensive network of production and reception in which women took on many roles...

From one of the most esteemed American poets of the twenty-first century comes a celebration of poetry and an invitation for anyone to experience its beauty and wonder.Full of fresh and exciting insights, Making Your Own Days illuminates the somewhat...

'If you're someone who dreams of penning a bestseller, read this book' The Week'What if the success of E.L.James and Dan Brown was not so random? What if there were an algorithm that could pick out the bestseller DNA concealed within these books before...

"Contexts" constructs the historical foundation for this very historical novel. Many documents are included on the "New York Four Hundred," elite social gatherings, archery (the sport for upper-crust daughters), as well as Wharton's manuscript outlines,...

'James Anthony has done something I would have confidently stated to be impossible. He has "translated" Shakespeare's sonnets and he has done so with an insolent, loveable charm ... A dazzling success' - Stephen FryRediscover the greatest love poetry...

What does contemporary China's diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you've never seen before: a vast...

The zany, the cute, and the interesting saturate postmodern culture. They dominate the look of its art and commodities as well as our discourse about the ambivalent feelings these objects often inspire. In this radiant study, Sianne Ngai offers a theory...

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang used his 2003 work Kicking Away The Ladder to challenge the central orthodoxies of development economics, using his creative thinking skills to shine new light on an old topic. Creative thinkers are often...

Whitney's two volumes of verse miscellany, 'Sweet Nosegay' (1573) and 'The Copy of a Letter' (1567), were part of a literary trend of combining classical and Biblical references with popular and vernacular sources, and reflect the growing literary...