Helen Thomas examines the ways in which Caryl Phillips responds both creatively and critically to the psychological effects of cultural dispersal, racism and economic exploitation in the black Atlanti
T.S. Eliot's life took him from the United States to England, from philosophy to poetry and from modern scepticism to traditional Christianity. Colin MacCabe's study places Eliot's poetry in the conte
A new edition of the first full-length study of contemporary British writer Kazuo Ishiguro and his works, up to 2005. This book explores his uses of memory and its unreliability in narrative, his mani
Edward Bond has been, since his controversial arrival on the theatrical scene in 1965, one of Britain's most distinctive and important theatre writers. This study examines his work, from The Pope's We
A clear overview and analysis of James Baldwin's life and work. This study provides an engaging overview and clear analysis of the fiction, non-fiction and drama of African- American writer James Bald
Change and transformation are central to the action, themes and language of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this lucid study Helen Hackett shows how the play participates in a widespread 1590s concern w
Browning has been identified as the greatest 19th century poet of human psychology, but the category most popular in his own time defined him as a poet of 'the grotesque'. This book undertakes to spec
Since the publication of her first full length novel, Adam Bede, in 1859 George Eliot has enjoyed the reputation of the greatest realist novelist in English and as the guardian of traditional English
By assessing what was original in Jane Austen's fictional technique in the context of the history of the novel, Professor Miles offers a fresh evaluation of how Austen came to be constructed as a mode
William Langland is one of the most important authors of the middle ages and Piers Plowman, one of the most challenging and complex poems of all time. Written and revised in the last decades of the fo
Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) has been acclaimed as one of the finest British novelists of the late twentieth century. Four of her novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize and one of them, Offsh
Gurney is the greatest of all those poets who fought in and survived the First World War and his achievement drastically affects our understanding of twentieth century poetry.
Olive Schreiner, who was born in 1855 in South Africa, has become a central literary figure for thinking about the complex debates surrounding gender, imperialism and class between 1880 and 1920.
This book gives a historical and critical introduction to the genre of crime fiction, from Edgar Allan Poe's first detective story The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841 to the present day. It concentr
One of the best loved of Shakespeare's 'middle comedies', As You Like It has rarely been out of the theatrical repertoire. Centering on the cross-dressed figure of Rosalind, the play both celebrates a
Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) offer an account of the relation between gender and power in nineteenth-century Britain. While Bronte's first novel focuses on th
This new study of Andrew Marvell offers a state-of-the-art guide to one of the most intriguing and elusive poets of the seventeenth century. Professor Annabel Patterson, known for her ability to make
Smart is popularly known for having written his exuberant lyric 'A Song to David' and the cryptic 'Jubilate Agno' while locked away in a madhouse, then ending his days in a debator's jail. But this cl
This work on novelist, journalist, Christian apologist, and literary and social critic G.K. Chesterton considers his ideas and his writing together and the relationship between the two, examining his
A revaluation of the vast and vastly varied work of G.K. Chesterton through a literary reading of his philosophy, and a philosophical reading of his fiction. Novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, hist
