Biography, Literature and Literary studies Books
Penguin Putnam Inc Orwell George Animal Farm Plume
Book Synopsis75th Anniversary Edition—Includes a New Introduction by Téa ObrehtGeorge Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire of a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
£9.49
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Awake
Book SynopsisA new look at the life and works of William Blake, revealing the full complexity and enduring legacy of this deeply spiritual, politically radical figure.
£24.75
Unicorn Publishing Group After the Dance
Book SynopsisAfter The Dance delves into the intriguing life of South African artist Le Roux Smith Le Roux (19141963), a brilliant yet obsessive outsider who was appointed Deputy Keeper of the Tate Gallery in 1950 at the age of thirty-six. Renowned for his sharp intelligence and methodical approach, Le Roux boldly questions the price paid by Director Sir John Rothenstein for the Degas sculpture, Li le Dancer, Aged Fourteen. While Le Roux excels in his professional life, his personal relationships are chaotic. The biography unveils the complexities of a talented man whose life was tumultuous as it was remarkable. The narrative describes the Great Tate Affair (19521954), offering a fresh perspective that challenges the accepted narrative shaped by Rothenstein's flawed account. Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, this book invites readers to reconsider one of art history's most controversial episodes.
£24.00
Profile Books Ltd Metamorphoses
Book SynopsisAn Economist Best Book of 2024'A high-spirited, richly informed, and original portrait, a cross between biography, literary analysis and a study in modern canonisation: Karolina Watroba is an inspired guide and her book a pleasure to read.' Marina WarnerIn 2024, exactly one hundred years after his death at the age of 40, readers all over the world will reach for the works of Franz Kafka. Many of them will want to learn more about the enigmatic man behind the classic books filled with mysterious courts and monstrous insects. Who, exactly, was Franz Kafka?Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a Fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time and space, travelling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are in part homages to the great man himself.Metamorphoses is a non-chronological journey through Kafka's life, drawing together literary schol
£17.09
Batsford A Jane Austen Year
Book Synopsis This beautifully illustrated book charts the life of one of the world's most beloved authors, through the objects that surrounded her, the personal letters and manuscripts that she created, and the events that shaped her life and understanding. It is published in partnership with the curators of Jane Austen's House, the enchanting Hampshire cottage where her genius flourished that now attracts thousands of visitors every year. Arranged over the course of a calendar year, from snowy scenes in January to festive recipes in December, specially commissioned photography of Austen's home and possessions are brought together with extracts from her books, reproductions of her letters, and stories of her life throughout the seasons. Highlights include affectionate letters to her sister Cassandra reproduced in full, the story of the publication of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice, and an exquisite miniature portrait of Tom Lefroy, the man she nearly married. Read this book for a unique and intimate insight into Jane Austen's world. Dip into it as you will, or visit each month, and enjoy a full year of Austen her life, works and letters, people and objects she knew, and of course her idyllic, inspiring home.
£26.21
Faber & Faber 1599 A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
Book SynopsisWinner of the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Baillie Gifford ''Winner of Winners'' award in 2023How did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with as he invests in the new Globe theatre and creates four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet.This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.A brilliant study, which carefully unpacks a single year in Shakespeare''s life ... The audacious focus on just one year pays off magnificently.' Sunday TimesA far richer, more intimate portrait of our greatest author than you''re likely to find in any cradle-to-grave biography.' Daily MailGripping and illuminating.' TelegraphA fascinating and entirely believable portrait of a talented workaholic ... Shapiro''s informed enthusiasm and energetic prose is addictive.'' GuardianTrade Review"'One of the few genuinely original biographies of Shakespeare.' Jonathan Bate, Sunday Telegraph"
£13.49
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative
Book SynopsisWhat is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people''s lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.Trade ReviewPraise for the second edition: 'This second edition of H. Porter Abbott's very widely used (and highly regarded) Introduction is even stronger than the first edition. The new edition includes two additional chapters, one on 'Narrative and Truth' and the other on 'Narrative Worlds,' which incorporate recent research by a range of scholars exploring the relevant issues, and, furthermore, the author has painstakingly reworked the entire volume to ensure accuracy, comprehensiveness, and clarity in its treatment of major trends in the study of narrative … What was true of the first edition is even more true of the second: this Introduction is not only an appropriate text for classes focusing on narrative - including advanced undergraduate and graduate classes in such (sub)disciplines as literary theory, film theory, communication studies, discourse analysis, women's and gender studies, history, comparative media studies, and critical legal theory - but also an invaluable resource for specialists.' David Herman, editor of The Cambridge Companion to NarrativePraise for the first edition: 'Abbott brilliantly zeroes in on the architecture of narrative with an exactness and bent for orderly exposition that utterly redeems his subject.' The Chronicle of Higher EducationPraise for the first edition: 'Anyone seeking a lucidly written guide to the study of narrative technique should turn immediately to H. Porter Abbott's Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.' Literature/Film QuarterlyPraise for the first edition: 'Directness, accessibility, and coherence distinguish this brief but comprehensive study of narrative … Most highly recommended.' ChoicePraise for the first edition: 'A lucid, practical, wide-ranging, and often original introduction to narrative, which will be extremely useful in undergraduate and graduate courses on literary theory and criticism. This is not a dry textbook, however; the reader is made aware of a real voice and of a fascination with the role of narrative across many areas of culture and beyond.' Derek Attridge, University of YorkTable of Contents1. Narrative and life; 2. Defining narrative; 3. The borders of narrative; 4. The rhetoric of narrative; 5. Closure; 6. Narration; 7. Interpreting narrative; 8. Three ways to interpret narrative; 9. Adaptation across media; 10. Character and Self in narrative; 11. Narrative and truth; 12. Narrative worlds; 13. Narrative contestation; 14. Narrative negotiation: conflict revisited; 15. Narrative negotiation: closure revisited.
£23.74
Batsford Ltd 100 Books that Changed the World
Book SynopsisA thought-provoking chronological timeline of the world's most influential books.
£16.00
Oxford University Press The Moonstone
Book SynopsisA fabulous yellow diamond disappears, the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Wilkie Collins The Moonstone Explanatory notes Index
£8.54
Liverpool University Press Longus Daphnis and Chloe Aris Phillips Classical
Book SynopsisThis edition of Daphnis and Chloe , the best known of the Greek romances, provides the first modern commentary in English on this intriguing work. This is the story of two young people growing up as goatherd and shepherdess, and their discovery of love, sex and their true selves.Trade ReviewI warmly recommend this volume to those interested in ancient fiction and Greek literature in the Roman empire...it will be difficult to supersede the wealth of information and ideas offered in this elegantly produced book.'Table of ContentsPreface INTRODUCTION DAPHNIS AND CHLOE Book one Book two Book three Book four COMMENTARY Book one Book two Book three Book four
£25.29
Oxford University Press Louise de la Vallière
Book SynopsisLouise de la Balliere is the middle section of The Vicomte de Bragelonne or, Ten Years After. Against a tender love story, Dumas continues the suspense which began with The Vicomte de Bragelonne and will end with The Man in the Iron Mask. It is early summer, 1661, and the royal court of France is in turmoil. Can it be true that the King is in love with the Duchess d''Orleans? Or has his eye been caught by the sweet and gentle Louise de la Valliere? No one is more anxious to know the answer than Raoul, son of Athos, who loves Louise more than life itself. Behind the scenes, dark intrigues are afoot. Louis XIV is intent on making himself absolute master of France. Imminent crisis shakes the now aging Musketeers and d''Artagnan out of their complacent retirement, but is the cause just? This new edition of the classic English translation of 1857 is richly annotated and sets Dumas''s invigorating tale in its historical and cultural context. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Reviewone of the very best of the series, mixing amorous and political intrigue with an élan peculiar to Dumas ... this quasi-historical series remains remarkably readable * The Irish Times (Dublin) *
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Writing to Learn
Book Synopsis
£13.29
Montez Press The Ginny Suite
Book Synopsis
£13.50
Rupa Publications India Pvt Ltd. Odyssey by Homer
Book SynopsisAfter the fall of Troy, the intrepid Odysseus sets sail for Ithaca. En route, his ships are blown off course and Odysseus and his men must face a series of adventures before they can reach home. He has to beguile the enchantress Circe, defeat the six-headed sea monster Scylla, and resist the lure of the Siren''s song. And as he negotiates the favours bestowed on him by the goddess Athena and faces the wrath of god of the sea, Poseidon. Odysseus understands that he will have to rely on himself to overcome this ultimate test of endurance.The Odyssey is one of the most important epic poems of Greek mythology. It describes a rousing adventure and, in doing so, explores the various facets of the human condition. Features A brilliantly written classic from one of the world''s oldest and most enchanting story tellers - Homer It is a timeless classic about the sojourns of Odysseus, which teach him lessons of life besides offering a rousing adventure The Odyssey is one of the oldest and most important epic poems of Greek mythology which is a must for all literature enthusiasts and students alike
£12.74
Oxford University Press Animal Farm
Book SynopsisWhen the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality.Trade ReviewWhere this Oxford University Press edition hugely scores is with the ancillary content [..] these enable you to dig into the detail of the story's foundations, understand what Orwell was getting at and just what he was criticising. * Jonathan Cowie, SF2 Concatenation *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography Chronology Animal Farm Explanatory Notes
£8.54
Random House USA Inc Notes from Underground
Book Synopsis“The political cataclysms and cultural revolutions of our century . . . confirm the status of Notes from Underground as one of the most sheerly astonishing and subversive creations of European fiction.”—from the Introduction by Donald Fanger“I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man,” the irascible voice of a nameless narrator cries out. And so, from underground, emerge the passionate confessions of a suffering man; the brutal self-examination of a tormented soul; the bristling scorn and iconoclasm of alienated individual who has become one of the greatest antiheroes in all literature. Notes From Underground, published in 1864, marks a tuming point in Dostoevsky's writing: it announces the moral political, and social ideas he will treat on a monumental scale in Crime And Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. And it remains to this day one of the most searingly honest and uni
£6.44
Akashic Books,U.S. Will Work For Drugs
Book Synopsis
£14.36
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Black Comedy 9 Plays
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Harvard University Press Northanger Abbey
Book SynopsisIn her introduction to Northanger Abbey—part of Harvard’s celebrated annotated Austen series—Susan Wolfson proposes that Austen’s most underappreciated, most playful novel is about fiction itself and how it can take possession of everyday understandings. Wolfson’s running commentary will engage new readers and delight scholars.Trade ReviewThe Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press continues its stellar collection of gorgeous, oversized editions with a new annotated version of Jane Austen’s 1817 novel Northanger Abbey. Princeton University English professor Susan Wolfson does the annotating honors this time, filling page after page with her lively and freakishly comprehensive marginalia… Her Introduction is fast-paced and insightful… The quality of the annotations themselves is universally excellent… No matter how many times you’ve read Northanger Abbey, Wolfson will teach you something, and many of the connections she draws are fascinating. -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *Offers up just the type of sumptuous reading experience that we’ve come to expect from this series…The Northanger Abbey text is richly illustrated with paintings, museum-quality photographs, and colorful Regency prints. A pleasure to turn, these luxurious pages will satisfy even the most book-hungry Janeite—and at a reasonable price. This is just the type of chocolate-box of a book that you will want to savor while curled up on the sofa…Wolfson’s smart and gorgeous new edition of Northanger Abbey is a must-have for anyone who looks forward to reading or rereading this novel in time for its bicentenary. You are in for a treat. -- Janine Barchas * JASNA News *Susan Wolfson is the ideal scholar-critic to guide us through Jane Austen’s mock-gothic Northanger Abbey. With a masterly introduction, this annotated edition is a treasure-trove of historical background, intertextual illumination, and literary insight. -- Joyce Carol OatesThrough her introduction and notes, Susan Wolfson provides abundant information about Jane Austen’s life, circumstances, and cultural setting, as well as a penetrating interpretation of Northanger Abbey. This annotated edition adds to the enjoyment that the novel has given readers over almost three centuries. Austen’s spoof of the Gothic supplies not only entertainment, but also, as Wolfson demonstrates, insight into the author’s attitudes toward reading, gender relations, the novelist’s art, and much besides. -- Patricia Meyer Spacks, University of VirginiaNorthanger Abbey, least known of Jane Austen’s novels, offers some of her wittiest lines and most personal opinions. Susan Wolfson’s cogent and spirited introduction and her notes, acute and thorough, make this an edition every Austen enthusiast will learn from and enjoy. -- Claire Tomalin, author of Jane Austen: A Life
£25.46
Anthem Press Scenes of Bohemian Life
Book Synopsis
£18.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Ethical Living through Stories
Book Synopsis
£8.99
Random House Publishing Group Uncle Toms Toms Cabin englischsprachig
Book SynopsisUncle Tom, Topsy, Sambo, Simon Legree, little Eva: their names are American bywords, and all of them are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's remarkable novel of the pre-Civil War South. Uncle Tom's Cabin was revolutionary in 1852 for its passionate indictment of slavery and for its presentation of Tom, 'a man of humanity,' as the first black hero in American fiction. Labeled racist and condescending by some contemporary critics, it remains a shocking, controversial, and powerful work -- exposing the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward 'the peculiar institution' and documenting, in heartrending detail, the tragic breakup of black Kentucky families 'sold down the river.' An immediate international sensation, Uncle Tom's Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the first year, was translated into thirty-seven languages, and has never gone out of print: its political impact was immense, its emotional influence immeasurable.
£7.37
Random House USA Inc The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction
Book Synopsis
£7.56
Columbia University Press Our Savage Art
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThere is a grain of truth in almost everything [Logan] writes. -- Jordan Davis Times Literary Supplement Logan's prose is polished, witty, authoritative, and courageous... Highly recommended. Choice The latest installment in William Logan's prolonged and rambunctious assault on the state of American poetry. -- Mark Ford New York Times Book Review One of the wittiest and most astute poet-critics of our-or any-generation... A work of devilish wit, arrogance, insight, and intellect.The Dark Horse -- Rory Waterman The Dark Horse Who's the Best Poetry Critic in America? His name I can mention. William Logan. -- James Wolcott Arguably the most industrious and notorious poet-critic to brandish that hyphen like a knife between his teeth since his acknowledged master Randall Jarrell... He often comes off as nothing so much as the Dirty Harry of the poetry beat. -- David Barber, New York Times Book ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments The Bowl of Diogenes; or, The End of Criticism Verse Chronicle: Out on the Lawn Verse Chronicle: Stouthearted Men The Most Contemptible Moth: Lowell in Letters Forward Into the Past: Reading the New Critics Verse Chronicle: One If by Land Verse Chronicle: The Great American Desert The State with the Prettiest Name Elizabeth Bishop Unfinished Elizabeth Bishop's Sullen Art Verse Chronicle: Jumping the Shark Verse Chronicle: Victoria's Secret Attack of the Anthologists The Lost World of Lawrence Durrell Hart Crane Overboard On Reviewing Hart Crane The Endless Ocean of Derek Walcott The Civil Power of Geoffrey Hill Verse Chronicle: God's Chatter Verse Chronicle: Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Luff Pynchon in the Poetic Back to the Future (Thomas Pynchon ) Verse Chronicle: The World Is Too Much with Us Verse Chronicle: Valentine's Day Massacre The Forgotten Masterpiece of John Townsend Trowbridge Frost at Midnight Interview by Garrick Davis Permissions Books Under Review Index of Authors Reviewed
£23.80
Harvard University Press The Novel
Book SynopsisThe 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Encompassing a range of genres, it is geographically and culturally boundless and influenced by great novelists working in other languages. Michael Schmidt, choosing as his travel companions not critics or theorists but other novelists, does full justice to its complexity.Trade ReviewGiven the fluidity with which [Schmidt] ranges across the canon (as well as quite a bit beyond it), one is tempted to say that he carries English literature inside his head as if it were a single poem, except that there are sections in The Novel on the major Continental influences, too—the French, the Russians, Cervantes, Kafka—so it isn’t only English. If anyone’s up for the job, it would seem to be him… Take a breath, clear the week, turn off the WiFi, and throw yourself in… The book, at its heart, is a long conversation about craft. The terms of discourse aren’t the classroom shibboleths of plot, character, and theme, but language, form, and address. Here is where we feel the force of Schmidt’s experience as an editor and a publisher as well as a novelist… Like no other art, not poetry or music on the one hand, not photography or movies on the other, [a novel] joins the self to the world, puts the self in the world, does the deep dive of interiority and surveils the social scope… [Novels] are also exceptionally good at representing subjectivity, at making us feel what it’s like to inhabit a character’s mind. Film and television, for all their glories as narrative and visual media, have still not gotten very far in that respect, nor is it easy to see how they might… Schmidt reminds us what’s at stake, for novels and their intercourse with selves. The Novel isn’t just a marvelous account of what the form can do; it is also a record, in the figure who appears in its pages, of what it can do to us. The book is a biography in that sense, too. Its protagonist is Schmidt himself, a single reader singularly reading. -- William Deresiewicz * The Atlantic *[Schmidt] reads so intelligently and writes so pungently… Schmidt’s achievement: a herculean literary labor, carried off with swashbuckling style and critical aggression. -- John Sutherland * New York Times Book Review *If you want your books a bit quieter and more extensive chronologically, then do try poet Michael Schmidt’s 700-year history of the novel, The Novel: A Biography, which covers the rise and relevance of the novel and its community of booklovers in a delightful tale, not at all twice-told, that reminds us of exactly why we read. -- Brenda Wineapple * Wall Street Journal *A wonderful, opinionated and encyclopedic book that threatens to drive you to a lifetime of rereading books you thought you knew and discovering books you know you don’t. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *The Novel: A Biography is a marvel of sustained attention, responsiveness, tolerance and intelligence… It is Schmidt’s triumph that one reads on and on without being bored or annoyed by his keen generosity. Any young person hot for literature would be wise to take this fat, though never obese, volume as an all-in-one course in how and what to read. Then, rather than spend three years picking up the opinions of current academics, the apprentice novelist can learn a foreign language or two, listen, look and then go on his or her travels, wheeling this book as vade mecum. -- Frederic Raphael * Literary Review *In recent years, while the bookish among us were bracing ourselves for the bookless future, stowing our chapbooks and dog-eared novellas in secret underground bunkers, the poet and scholar Michael Schmidt was writing a profile of the novel. The feat itself is uplifting. Bulky without being dense or opaque, The Novel: A Biography belongs on the shelf near Ian Watt’s lucid The Rise of the Novel and Jane Smiley’s livelier user manual, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. Taking as his guide The March of Literature, Ford Madox Ford’s classic tour through the pleasures of serious reading, Schmidt steers clear of the canon wars and their farcical reenactments. He doesn’t settle the question of whether Middlemarch makes us better people. He isn’t worried about ‘trigger warnings.’ And he doesn’t care that a Stanford professor is actively not reading books. Instead, with humor and keen insight, he gives us the story of the novel as told by practitioners of the form. The book is meant for ordinary readers, whose interest is not the death of theory or the rise of program fiction, but what Schmidt calls, in a memorable line, ‘our hunger for experience transformed.’ -- Drew Calvert * Los Angeles Review of Books *The Novel is one of the most important works of both literary history and criticism to be published in the last decade… The reason Schmidt’s book is so effective and important has to do with its approach, its scope, and its artistry, which all come together to produce a book of such varied usefulness, such compact wisdom, that it’ll take a lot more than a few reviews to fully understand its brilliant contribution to literary study… Here, collected in one place, we have the largest repository of the greatest novelists’ opinions and views on other novelists. It would take the rest of us going through countless letters and essays and interviews with all these writers to achieve such a feat. Schmidt has done us all a great, great favor… Maybe the most complete history of the novel in English ever produced… [A] multitudinous achievement… Schmidt [is] an uncannily astute critic… Schmidt’s masterpiece… Schmidt’s writing is a triumph of critical acumen and aesthetic elegance… [The Novel] is a monumental achievement, in its historical importance and its stylistic beauty… It is, itself, a work of art, just as vital and remarkable as the many works it chronicles. -- Jonathan Russell Clark * The Millions *Rare in contemporary literary criticism is the scholar who betrays a love for literature… How refreshing, then, to encounter in Michael Schmidt’s The Novel: A Biography not a theory of the novel, but a life. And what a life it is… Schmidt arranges his examination both chronologically and thematically, taking into account the influences and developments that have shaped the novel for hundreds of years. The Novel is at once encyclopedia, history, and ‘biography.’ …[Schmidt’s] lyrical prose weaves together literary analysis, biography, and cultural criticism… Another delightful aspect of The Novel consists of the surprising and insightful connections Schmidt finds among writers… The Novel is more revelatory (and interesting) than a merely chronological account would be. -- Karen Swallow Prior * Books & Culture *[Schmidt] is a wonderful and penetrating critic, lucid and insightful about a dizzying range of novelists. -- Nick Romeo * Daily Beast *Show[s] how much is to be gained by the application of unfettered intelligence to the study of literature… Schmidt seems to have read every novel ever published in English… This is as sensitive an appreciation of Fielding’s style (all those essayistic addresses to the reader that introduce each of the eighteen books of Tom Jones) as any I’ve ever read. And what Schmidt does for Fielding he does equally well for Ford Madox Ford, Mary Shelley, and (by my count) about 347 others… [Schmidt’s] sensibilities are wholly to be trusted. -- Stephen Akewy * Open Letters Monthly *I was left breathless at Michael Schmidt’s erudition and voracious appetite for reading. -- Alexander Lucie-Smith * The Tablet *[Schmidt] has written what claims to be a ‘biography’ of the novel. It isn’t. It’s something much more peculiar and interesting… Illuminating and fascinating. And because the book makes no pretense to objectivity, the prose is engaging and witty… [A] marvelous book… If there is a future for encyclopedic books ‘after’ the internet, this is a model of how it should be done. -- Robert Eaglestone * Times Higher Education *The title and the length of Michael Schmidt’s book promise something more than an annotated chronology. This is not a rise of, nor an aspects of, nor even a theory of, the novel, but a nuanced account of the development of an innovative form… Schmidt’s preferences are strong and warm. He admires a range of authors from Thomas Love Peacock and Walter Scott to Anthony Burgess and Peter Carey… The Novel: A Biography incidentally provides the material for one to make a personal re-reading list. -- Lindsay Duguid * Times Literary Supplement *[Schmidt] prove[s] his wide-ranging reading tastes, his ability to weave a colorful literary tapestry and his conviction that the novel is irrepressible. * Kirkus Reviews *If focusing on the events surrounding one novel isn’t enough, or is too much, Michael Schmidt offers an eclectic variety in The Novel: A Biography. At 1,160 pages, this hefty volume features 350 novelists from Canada, Australia, Africa, Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the Caribbean and covers 700 years of storytelling. But Schmidt does something different: while the book is arranged chronologically, the chapters are theme-based (e.g., ‘The Human Comedy,’ ‘Teller and Tale,’ ‘Sex and Sensibility’) and follow no specific outline, blending author biographies, interviews, reviews, and criticism into fluid narratives… This is a compelling edition for writers and other readers alike; a portrayal that is aligned with Edwin Muir’s belief that the ‘only thing which can tell us about the novel is the novel.’ -- Annalisa Pesek * Library Journal *I toast a certainty—the long and fruitful life of poet, critic, and scholar Michael Schmidt’s book, The Novel: A Biography. Readers for generations will listen through Schmidt’s ear to thrilling conversations, novelist to novelist, and walk guided by Schmidt through these 1200 pages of his joyful and wise understanding. -- Stanley MossMichael Schmidt is one of literature’s most ambitious champions, riding out against the naysayers, the indifferent, and the purse holders, determined to enlarge readers’ vision and rouse us all to pay attention. Were it not for his rich and adventurous catalogue of publications at Carcanet Press, and the efforts of a few other brave spirits at other small presses (such as Bloodaxe Books) the landscape of poetry in the U.K. would be depopulated, if not desolate. He has now turned his prodigious energies to telling the story of the novel’s transformation through time: a Bildungsroman of the genre from a persevering and unappeasable lover. -- Marina Warner
£28.86
Random House Publishing Group Main Street
Book Synopsis
£5.90
Dalkey Archive Press Theory of Prose
Book SynopsisAs time has proven, Theory of Prose still remains one of the twentieth century’s most significant works of literary theory. It not only anticipates structuralism and poststructuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Founded on the concept of “making strange,” it lays bare the inner workings of fiction—especially the works of Cervantes, Tolstoy, Sterne, Dickens, Bely and Rozanov—and imparts a new way of seeing, of reading, and of interacting with the world.Trade Review"Out of Shklovsky’s conviction came critical works of great beauty and complexity, but also several utterly remarkable literary works." -Martin Riker "Shklovsky’s audacity gave him the freedom to take apart Cervantes and Sterne, Gogol and Tolstoy, with a brilliance that still dazzles ninety years later."-The Nation "Shklovsky, who refers to own his style as "serpentine," employs digression, repetition, autobiography and occasional salutations to the reader, confounding one's expectations of how a book of literary criticism should unfold. In doing so, he crafts a true rarity: a superbly written, extended critical study that's capable of inducing a feeling of affection in the reader towards its author."-The Guardian
£12.34
Random House USA Inc Jungle Bantam Classics
Book Synopsis
£7.18
Random House Publishing Group The Portrait of a Lady Classics
Book SynopsisCapturing the grandeur of a gracious, splendid Europe of wealth and Old World sensibilities, this glorious, complex novel has become a touchstone for a great writer’s entire literary achievement. From the opening pages, when the high-spirited American girl Isabel Archer arrives at the English manor Gardencourt, James’s luminous, superbly crafted prose creates an atmosphere of intensity, expectation, and incomparable beauty. Isabel, who has been taken abroad by an eccentric aunt to fulfill her potential, attracts the passions of a British aristocrat and a brash American, as well as the secret adoration of her invalid cousin, Ralph Touchett. But her vulnerability and innocence lead her not to love but to a fatal entrapment in intrigue, deception, and betrayal. This brilliant interior drama of the forming of a woman’s consciousness makes The Portrait of a Lady a masterpiece of James’s middle years.
£6.30
Dedalus Press Butterfly Valley: A Requiem
Book Synopsis
£6.95
Harvard University Press Metaphor
Book SynopsisMetaphor supposes that an ordinary word could have been used, but instead something unexpected appears. The point of a metaphor is to enrich experience by bringing different associations to mind, by giving something a different life. The prophetic character of metaphor, Denis Donoghue says, changes the world by changing our sense of it.Trade ReviewFor almost half a century Denis Donoghue has written stylish, weighty books, distinguished by the way they interweave an intricate sense of literary pleasure with an interest, no less intricate, in philosophical ideas… Now we have Metaphor, a characteristically intelligent and suggestive account, which reconsiders these grand philosophical tensions on the small stage of a figure of speech… Metaphor becomes an index of spiritual freedom: not a bit of tame likeness-making, like a simile. A metaphor is more like a heroic gesture towards autonomy, a rejection of the world of ‘common usage and the values it enforces.’ Donoghue pursues this theme with all his urbane powers of implication and range, finding in the metaphor a miniaturized instance of the idealist imagination… Donoghue is vivid and clever about a whole range of metaphorical uses in these pages. -- Seamus Perry * Times Literary Supplement *[A] civilized and informative book… When he discusses Yeats, Joyce or Heaney, Donoghue doesn’t just understand their language but feels it too, and the whole book explains through close analysis of poems by Pound, Stevens and Eliot why image and metaphor have come to occupy such a central position in modernist poetry and 20th-century criticism. -- Colin Burrow * London Review of Books *[There is a] difference between metaphor that illuminates and metaphor that obscures. It is one of the merits of Denis Donoghue’s book, with its rich store of examples and its intimacy with the secondary literature, that he is constantly inciting us to wrestle with that distinction. -- Paul Dean * New Criterion *You think you know what a metaphor is, but you don’t, not really. Denis Donoghue’s new book, Metaphor, is here to help, tracing the genealogy of the metaphor—along with its siblings, like the simile—throughout history, offering a more complete understanding of this ubiquitous literary device… Chock-full of entertaining examples and informative lessons on all types of metaphor. * Sewanee Review *Let us be clear: this is one of the more important books written by an Irish author so far this century… [Donoghue’s] magnum opus. -- Mark Patrick Hederman * The Furrow *[A] subtle and engrossing new book… Full of wild and beautiful examples. -- Michael Wood * Irish Times *Compelling… [It] meanders gently from the charmingly personal to the keenly microscopic in its treatment of its (largely literary and philosophical) material… A true readerly pleasure in Metaphor is the intense, tactile connection Donoghue strikes between himself and the text at hand… This is the purpose of Metaphor: to make us see how and why metaphor can revitalize our understanding not just of what we read but of how we read… What [Donoghue] succeeds at doing is to force us to scrutinize with greater care, to convince us to bring a portion of ourselves to what we read, and to get us to think outside the (metaphorical) box to which our everyday associations has confined us. Making metaphor personal is the key to eliciting deeper reading. -- Lianne Habinek * Open Letters Monthly *Wonderfully combines the scholarly and the personal. Recalling his metaphor-rich Catholic childhood and hearing ‘Panis Angelicus,’ [Donoghue] unlocks Aquinas’ word-play to elucidate the view that divinity conceals itself in physical symbols. He forces us to reconsider ordinary language, what makes (or doesn’t) make one thing like another and ultimately what truth and reality actually are. -- Jane O’Grady * The Tablet *In this prodigiously learned meditation, Donoghue takes readers through the history of the rhetorical device and its incarnations in poetry, fiction, philosophy, and everyday life… Rummaging through an exhaustive collection of linguistic authorities from Aristotle and Aquinas to Vico, Paul de Man, and J. L. Austin, Donoghue analyzes conflicting accounts of how metaphor shapes language and our experience of reality… Donoghue strives to show how metaphors ‘offer to change the world by changing one’s sense of it.’ Along the way, he studies verse by Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, and Stevens, among many others, weaving a thick tapestry of examples to show how metaphors are used and abused… The book successfully plunges readers into the complexities of figurative language and its power to revivify experience. * Publishers Weekly *Donoghue’s gentle, appreciative reflection on literary language here comes with the wisdom of accumulated decades of wide reading and robust insight. This is a book all about imaginative life, and it is a celebration of such life par excellence. It is a treat to watch a far-ranging, first-rate mind range over poetry and prose of centuries with so much zest for more life. -- Leslie Brisman, author of Romantic OriginsA wide-ranging, deeply learned account of the ‘daring vivacities’ language can achieve from the man who wrote the book on eloquence. -- Denise Gigante, author of Life: Organic Form and Romanticism
£30.56
Random House Publishing Group THE SCARLET LETTER AND SELECTED TALES
Book Synopsis
£6.02
Harvard University Press The Epic of Ram: Volume 2
Book SynopsisThe Epic of Ram by Tulsidas has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India and an influential literary masterpiece. This volume recounts Ram’s birth on earth, his youthful adventures, and the celebration of his marriage to Sita.Trade Review[A] cause for celebration—one of India’s most influential texts has been translated into contemporary English by a pivotal scholar who has devoted much of his career to the text, and its afterlives…Gives us a firm starting point for charting horizons and pathways into still-living traditions. -- Nikhil Govind * Scroll.in *Lutgendorf manages a simplicity, elegance and dignity, whereas attempts to rhyme or alliterate by other translators have often resulted in bathos…If this graceful and eminently readable translation can win more readers for this great scripture, which is also the greatest poem ever written in Hindi, it would have served to reaffirm Tulsi’s belief in the countless multiplicity of Ramayans. -- Harish Trivedi * IIC Quarterly *
£25.46
LMH Publishing Understanding Jamaican Patois: An Introduction to
Book Synopsis
£11.33
New Directions Publishing Corporation Exercises in Style
Book SynopsisA new edition of a French modernist classic - a Parisian scene told ninety-nine different ways - with new material written in homage by the likes of Jonathan Lethem, Rivka Galchen, and many more.Trade Review"Queneau’s Exercises in Style is a thrilling masterpiece and, in fact, one of the greatest stories in French literature." -- Vladimir Nabokov"Exercises in Style was a revolution, a book that proclaimed its powerful ideas simply by pursuing their iron logic." -- The Washington Post"What makes the book compelling is seeing this same, banal tale told through a huge variety of literary styles, from science fiction to rhyme, haiku to official letter. The variety in its repetition becomes at first odd, then hilarious as more and more absurd forms are chosen." -- The Huffington Post"This witty, bizarre read is perfect for dipping into, or reading from cover to cover, for anybody who loves storytelling." -- The Huffington Post"It will remind you of just how weird and infinite human language is." -- Raphael Rubinstein - BOMBlog"Exercises in Style is an irresistibly simple and frequently hilarious demonstration of the potential of language." -- The Believer Logger"It’s fair to say that Exercises in Style turns the current thinking about writing entirely, and brilliantly, on its head." -- Yuka Igarashi - The New Inquiry"It’s a testament to Queneau’s ability as a writer, and just as interestingly, it sort of blows apart the idea of how many ways a story can be told—and how style can be more important than content." -- Chad W. Post - Three Percent
£12.34
Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG Skandinavische Literaturgeschichte
Book SynopsisIn aktualisierter Fassung und mit einem Kapitel über die Literatur seit 2000 wird das Standardwerk zur Skandinavischen Literaturgeschichte neu vorgelegt. Das Kompendium beschreibt die Geschichte der Literaturen Dänemarks, Norwegens, Schwedens und Islands; die Literaturen in finnischer, färöischer, samischer und grönländischer Sprache kommen hinzu. In facettenreichen Porträts des literarischen Geschehens werden herausragende Autoren wie Holberg, Ibsen, Strindberg, Lagerlöf, Blixen, Laxness, Lindgren, Tranströmer u.v.a. gewürdigt. Zugleich entsteht ein faszinierendes Panorama der skandinavischen Kulturgeschichte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart.
£37.99
Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG Goethe. Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft
Book SynopsisDie Leopoldina-Ausgabe ist die erste vollständige historisch-kritische und kommentierte Ausgabe von Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften. Sie ist systematisch gegliedert und ediert die Texte mit den zugeordneten Materialien und ergänzt um zeitgenössische Zeugnisse. Die Ausgabe zeigt zudem Verbindungen auf, die zwischen Goethes naturwissenschaftlichem und literarischem Werk sowie zu den geistigen und wissenschaftlichen Strömungen seiner Zeit bestehen. Sie ersetzt die zweite Abteilung der Weimarer Sophienausgabe von Goethes Schriften nach neuen, editionsphilologischen Standards und ist ein grundlegendes Arbeitsinstrument auf dem neuesten Stand der Forschung für alle, die sich mit Goethes Schriften und der Naturforschung seiner Zeit befassen. Die abgeschlossene Ausgabe umfasst insgesamt 11 Text- und 18 Kommentarbände sowie zwei Registerbände.
£36.99
Oxford University Press Crime and Punishment
Book SynopsisCrime and Punishment is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. It is the story of a murder committed on principle, of a killer who wishes to set himself outside and above society. It is marked by Dostoevsky's own harrowing experience in penal servitude, and yet contains moments of wild humour.Trade ReviewSuperb... the Oxford University Press edition is beautifully produced and competitively priced. * Donald Rayfield, Times Literary Supplement *
£8.54
Oxford University Press Inc An Invitation to Biblical Poetry
Book SynopsisAn Invitation to Biblical Poetry is an accessibly written introduction to biblical poetry that emphasizes the aesthetic dimensions of poems and their openness to varieties of context. It demonstrates the irreducible complexity of poetry as a verbal art and considers the intellectual work poems accomplish as they offer aesthetic experiences to people who read or hear them. Chapters walk the reader through some of the diverse ways biblical poems are organized through techniques of voicing, lineation, and form, and describe how the poems'' figures are both culturally and historically bound and always dependent on later reception. The discussions consider examples from different texts of the Bible, including poems inset in prose narratives, prophecies, psalms, and wisdom literature. Each chapter ends with a reading of a psalm that offers an acute example of the dimension under discussion. Students and general readers are invited to richer and deeper readings of ancient poems and the subjects, problems, and convictions that occupy their imagination.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Voices Emotion Ascription and Authorship Multiplicity and Dialogue Prophetic Voicing Gender Psalm 55: A Reading Chapter 2: Lines Parallelism Enjambment Psalm 19: A Reading Chapter 3: Forms Terms Hymns Laments Love Poems Parody Acrostic Psalm 119: A Reading Chapter 4: Figures Metaphor and Simile Personification and Anthropomorphism Metaphors for the Deity Symbols Psalm 65: A Reading Chapter 5: Contexts Three Worlds of the Text Worlds Behind the Text Allusion Prophetic Poetry's Refusals The Poetry of Exile Psalm 137: A Reading Conclusion Index
£28.03
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky Stage
Book SynopsisTHE STAGE PLAYS OF PADDY CHAYEFSKY
£11.69
CENTRAL BOOKS Agostinho Neto Complete Poetry
Book Synopsis
£11.40
Oxford University Press Reading
Book SynopsisToday many people take reading for granted, but we remain some way off from attaining literacy for the global human population. And whilst we think we know what reading is, it remains in many ways a mysterious process, or set of processes. The effects of reading are myriad: it can be informative, distracting, moving, erotically arousing, politically motivating, spiritual, and much, much more. At different times and in different places reading means different things. In this Very Short Introduction Belinda Jack explores the fascinating history of literacy, and the opportunities reading opens. For much of human history reading was the preserve of the elite, and most reading meant being read to. Innovations in printing, paper-making, and transport, combined with the rise of public education from the late eighteenth century on, brought a dramatic rise in literacy in many parts of the world. Established links between a nation''s levels of literacy and its economy led to the promotion of reading for political ends. But, equally, reading has been associated with subversive ideas, leading to censorship through multiple channels: denying access to education, controlling publishing, destroying libraries, and even the burning of authors and their works. Indeed, the works of Voltaire were so often burned that an enterprising Parisian publisher produced a fire-proof edition, decorated with a phoenix. But, as Jack demonstrates, reading is a collaborative act between an author and a reader, and one which can never be wholly controlled. Telling the story of reading, from the ancient world to digital reading and restrictions today, Belinda Jack explores why it is such an important aspect of our society.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewAn altogether riveting read. * Paradigm Explorer *Table of ContentsList of illustrations 1. What is reading? 2. Ancient worlds 3. Reading manuscripts, reading print 4. Modern reading 5. Forbidden reading 6. Reading and/as interpretation 7. Pluralities Further reading Index
£9.49
Broadview Press Ltd Sophia
Book SynopsisThe first novel to be written for serial publication by a major female author, Sophia follows the story of two siblings, the virtuous and well-read eponymous heroine and her flighty and coquettish sister. While the latter leads a vapid life in the fashionable world of London, the former flees from a potential seducer to the country, where she pursues true friendship, learning, and an independent living. Previously out of print, the novel explores such issues as the place of female education, the opposition of city and country, the emergence of the literary marketplace, and the development of the individual.This Broadview edition reproduces images from the novel’s original serial publication and also includes other articles from Lennox’s periodical The Lady’s Museum, contemporary reviews of Sophia, and writings on sentimentalism.Trade Review“Norbert Schürer’s introduction provides the literary and cultural contexts for this wrongfully neglected novel of a major English novelist. He explains why Lennox was ‘the most important female writer in Britain around the middle of the eighteenth century’ and describes the innovations Sophia introduced both in its content and its format; it was one of the first novels to be published in serial installments in a magazine. This scrupulously edited volume is a treasure trove of information about Lennox’s life, the contemporary publishing world, and pervasive aspects of English culture such as titles, money, and transportation. It is a lively and authoritative contribution to our knowledge of the eighteenth-century British novel.” — Ruth Perry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology“While placing Lennox in a patriarchal literary marketplace dominated by Richardson, Fielding, and Dr. Johnson, Schürer provocatively reads this ‘two sisters novel’ both with and against the grain, to argue that Lennox both affirms and subverts Sophia's moral example and the novel’s conservative didacticism. Strengths of this edition include the reproduction and discussion of eighteenth-century illustrations of scenes from the novel, and the reprinting of otherwise hard to find contemporary biographies of ‘the celebrated’ Charlotte Lennox.” — Eve Tavor Bannet, University of Oklahoma “While placing Lennox in a patriarchal literary marketplace dominated by Richardson, Fielding, and Dr. Johnson, Schürer provocatively reads this ‘two sisters novel’ both with and against the grain, to argue that Lennox both affirms and subverts Sophia's moral example and the novel’s conservative didacticism. Strengths of this edition include the reproduction and discussion of eighteenth-century illustrations of scenes from the novel, and the reprinting of otherwise hard to find contemporary biographies of ‘the celebrated’ Charlotte Lennox.” — Eve Tavor Bannet, University of OklahomaTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionCharlotte Lennox: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextA Note on Female Property and EducationA Note on Rank and TitlesA Note on the ClergyA Note on British CurrencyA Note on TransportationSophiaAppendix A: Textual VariantsAppendix B: Lennox’s Life “Mrs. Lennox,” The British Magazine and Review (July 1783) Obituary, The Gentleman’s Magazine (January 1804) Obituary, The European Magazine (February 1804) “Memoir of Mrs. Lennox,” The Lady’s Monthly Museum (June 1813) Appendix C: Reviews of Sophia The Critical Review (May 1762) The Library (May 1762) The British Magazine (June 1762) The Gentleman’s Magazine (June 1762) The Monthly Review (July 1762) Books printed by and for James Hoey, junior (advertisement from 1763) Appendix D: Selections from The Lady’s Museum The Lady’s Museum (March 1760) “Philosophy for the Ladies,” The Lady’s Museum (April 1760) “To the Author of the Lady’s Museum,” The Lady’s Museum (May 1760) “Of the Importance of the Education of Daughters,” The Lady’s Museum (June 1760) Appendix E: Sentimentalism and Moral Philosophy From Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711) From David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) From Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) From Henry Mackenzie, The Lounger (1785) From Mary Alcock, Poems (1799) Select Bibliography and Works Cited
£27.86
Broadview Press Ltd The Second Mrs Tanqueray
Book SynopsisThe Second Mrs. Tanqueray was the theatrical sensation of the London stage in 1893. It established Pinero as the leading English dramatist of serious social issues, and created a star out of Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the title role. The play recounts the marriage of a "woman with a past" and how it fails because of the double standard of morality applied unequally and hypocritically by Victorian society to men and women.This Broadview edition includes a thoroughly revised text based on the author's manuscript, the prompt copy for the first production, and the published first edition; it also incorporates pertinent stage directions from the first production. The critical introduction examines all facets of the play and its production, and the appendices make accessible a wide variety of hard-to-find contemporary contextual materials related to the play.Trade ReviewAlthough I have known this play for many years, J.P. Wearing's introduction sheds new light on many interesting aspects of the piece, which I look forward to teaching afresh with the benefit of this text. The footnotes and the supplementary material all help in understanding the play, placing it in the social and legal context of its day. Not that it is a mere period piece; Pinero's skill as a playwright is impressive, and one hopes that this edition will encourage new productions." - Richard Foulkes, University of Leicester"A century and more after the fact, A.W. Pinero’s most penetrating play, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, has now been given a full-dress evaluative and contextual editorial treatment that does complete justice to its subject. J.P. Wearing, editor of Pinero’s letters, has brought his finely honed scholarly skills and broad knowledge of English theatre and culture to the task of presenting the single most authoritative text of Pinero’s play in existence and surrounding it with several sets of informative critical, social, and cultural writing, along with a comprehensive introduction, chronology, and bibliography. An immense amount of research lies behind this enterprise, and a great range of potential readers, from undergraduate and graduate students to historians and critics, will be the beneficiaries." - Joseph Donohue, Professor Emeritus, University of MassachusettsTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionArthur Wing Pinero: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextThe Second Mrs.Tanqueray:A Play in Four ActsAppendix A: Pinero on Drama From T.H.L., “How I Construct My Plays: A Chat with Mr. Pinero,” Sketch (1893) Pinero, “The Modern British Drama,” Theatre (June 1895) From Pinero, Robert Louis Stevenson: The Dramatist (1903) From William Archer, Real Conversations (1904) From Pinero, “Robert Browning as a Dramatist,” Browning’s Centenary (1912) From Pinero, “Foreword,” Two Plays (1930) Appendix B: The Second Mrs.Tanqueray, The Golden Butterfly, and the AlbanyAppendix C: Social Background From Caroline Norton, A Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s Marriage and Divorce Bill(1855) From the Divorce and Matrimonial Act (1857) From John Ruskin, “Of Queens’ Gardens” (1865) Eliza Lynn Linton, “The Girl of the Period,” Saturday Review (14 March 1868) From A. St. John Adcock, “Leaving the London Theatres,” Living London (1901) From Emily Constance Cook, “The London Season,” London and Environs (1897-98) “Police,” The Times (5 November 1895) “The Charge Against Mr. George Alexander,” The Times (6 November 1895) “School Teacher’s Suicide: Letters from a Married Man,” The Times (29 June 1920) Appendix D: Contemporary Reactions to The Second Mrs. Tanqueray L.F.A., Illustrated London News (3 June 1893) William Archer,World (31 May 1893) Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (3 June 1893) Punch (10 June 1893) Saturday Review (3 June 1893) T.H.L., “A Chat with Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” Sketch (7 June 1893) From Yorkshire Post (22 September 1893) From T.W.M. Lund, The Second Mrs.Tanqueray: What? And Why? (1894) From Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review (23 February 1895) From H. Barton Baker, History of the London Stage and Its Famous Players (1576-1903) (1904) Appendix E: Dramatic Techniques The Original Closing Scene to Pinero’s The Profligate (1889) The Performed Closing Scene of the First Production of The Profligate (1889) From Henry Arthur Jones, Act 4, The Liars (1897) Select Bibliography
£21.56
Red Sea Press,U.S. Sewasiw Tigrinya B'sefihu: A Comprehensive
Book Synopsis
£13.29
Hat & Beard Earth Room
Book Synopsis
£14.25
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Freedom Only Freedom
Book SynopsisBehrouz Boochani is a Kurdish-Iranian writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate and filmmaker. Boochani was a writer and editor for the Kurdish language magazine Werya in Iran. He is a Visiting Professor, Birkbeck Law School; Associate Professor in Social Sciences at UNSW; non-resident Visiting Scholar at the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre (SAPMiC), University of Sydney; Honorary Member of PEN International; and winner of an Amnesty International Australia 2017 Media Award, the Diaspora Symposium Social Justice Award, the Liberty Victoria 2018 Empty Chair Award, and the Anna Politkovskaya award for journalism. He publishes regularly with The Guardian, and his writing also features in The Saturday Paper, Huffington Post, New Matilda, The Financial Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. Boochani is also co-director (with Arash Kamali Sarvestani) of the 2017 feature-length film Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time; and collaborator on Nazanin Sahamizadeh's play Manus. His book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature in addition to the Nonfiction category. He has also won the Special Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the Australian Book Industry Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year, and the National Biography Prize. Omid Tofighian is Adjunct Lecturer in the School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales; and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck Law, University of London. He is an award-winning lecturer, researcher and community advocate, combining philosophy with interests in citizen media, popular culture, displacement and discrimination. He is the translator of Behrouz Boochani's multi-award winning book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison (2018).Moones Mansoubi is a community, arts and cultural development worker based in Sydney. Her work is dedicated mainly to supporting and collaborating with migrants and people seeking asylum in Australia. She has managed numerous community and cultural projects and the first translator of Behrouz Boochani's work when he began writing from Manus Island. She was translation consultant for Boochani's book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Picador Australia 2018). Her translation of the article An Island Off Manus (Saturday Paper 6 May, 2017) was included in Boochani's winning nomination for the Amnesty Media Award in 2017. Moones has a Masters Degree in International Relations and is passionate about social justice and social cohesion. She is currently coordinator of the Community Refugee Welcome Centre in Inner West Sydney and a content producer for SBS Radio, Persian program.Trade ReviewBehrouz Boochani’s prison writings transcend journalism to become both a cry for justice, and an anatomy of a brutal prison system designed to strip its inmates of their identity, their aspirations, their agency, and crush their spirit. His writings are urgent, eloquent, and desperately poetic. Writing from within his Manus Prison, Boochani exposes the horror and inhumanity of Australia’s offshore detention system, yet he also captures the uniqueness, comradeship, and intimate acts of resistance of his fellow inmates, and affirms their full humanity. He fulfils his mission, his “duty to history”, and ensures that this dark chapter in Australian history, and those who suffered its consequences are not forgotten. A tour de force in bearing witness. * Arnold Zable, author of The Fig Tree *International law entitled people fleeing persecution to claim asylum. But those who seek refuge in Australia are subjected to indefinite offshore detention – a form of torture designed to sap their spirit and traumatise their minds. Behrouz Boochani survives to tell the truth about the cruelty of this policy, in a book which should open the eyes of Australians to a cruelty for which they are politically and morally responsible. These are writings of literary power and first-hand authenticity, with a message of urgent importance at a time when the siren slogan of “offshore detention” is appealing to governments in the UK and elsewhere. When will we recognise that it is both unprincipled and inhumane to punish the innocent? * Geoffrey Robertson AO QC *No Friend But the Mountains was a classic of Australian literature; Freedom, Only Freedom is something better. It is the definitive statement on freedom from a diverse group of writers working together on familiar themes. * ArtsHub *Behrouz Boochani’s newspaper articles about the “Manus Prison” have lost none of their original immediacy. This book also showcases some of the rich conversations prompted by his writings. A must-read for anybody wondering about what might happen when governments opt for an Australian “solution” and shirk their responsibilities towards refugees. * Klaus Neumann, author of Across the Seas (2015) *Behrouz Boochani’s work matters not merely because it bears journalistic witness to the brutality of mandatory refugee detentions but also because it distils that experience into a sophisticated theory of power and resistance. This book offers a deep engagement with a truly original writer. * Jeff Sparrow, author of Crimes Against Nature, (2021) *No writer wants to be a prison writer, no exile dreams of displacement without end. But nothing illuminates totalitarian thinking better than the power of creative imagination. We are fortunate that Behrouz Boochani and his friends summoned the courage to push the experience of Australia’s refugee regime into words. This stunning collection chronicles Boochani’s determination not to vanish. Freedom, Only Freedom is absolutely necessary reading for all those who want to understand what moral responsibility, political courage, and the anti-totalitarian imagination mean today. * Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Humanities and Human Rights, University of Birmingham, UK, and author of Placeless People *Focused on - but not limited to - his individual journey into exile, Behrouz Bouchani’s Freedom Only Freedom offers a provocative and vivid criticism of politics of incarceration, alienation, and subjugation of displaced refugees across the world with specific reference to the case Australia. He has created a new lexicon to reckon with the traumas of border-crossing, displacement, and alienation. * Fatemeh Shams, author of A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-Option Under the Islamic Republic *A necessary book in the era of border fetishism. Boochani shows us that the current punitive migration measures are rooted in a racist colonial history. Through linking the struggle of the indigenous people of Kurdistan to the struggle of migrants incarcerated by the Australian state in Manus Prison Boochani unfolds how a progressive political subjectivity emerges from the ruins of the nation-states system. Freedom, Only Freedom is a collection of critical and thoughtful contributions to scholarship on contemporary bordering practices. * Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University, Sweden *Manus is a polite form of torture, designed to deny us the privilege of people like Behrouz. It is often forgotten that the trial judgment in the Tampa case was delivered just 8 hours before the terrible 9/11 attack on America. Our government ramped up calling boat people like Behrouz “illegals”. It’s a lie: Behrouz points out that he broke no law, committed no crime, and had no trial, but was jailed for years. * Julian Burnside, AO, KC *This collected volume of Boochani's prison writings - supported and contextualised by essays from experts in migration, refugee rights, politics and literature - is profound and necessary reading for anyone interested in literature and human rights. Boochani's prison writings, though produced under horrendous conditions, are poetic, sharp in observation and generous in ambit. His body of work documenting firsthand the atrocities inflicted on refugees by the Australian government and their mandatory detention policies has allowed the world to bear witness to human rights violations which might otherwise have remained in the dark. * Maxine Clarke, Author of The Hate Race *The poetic and essayistic pieces in Freedom, Only Freedom: The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani exemplify the intersection of his prodigious literary and artistic creativity with his formidable political-geographical, political-scientific and journalistic expertise. Boochani and his collaborators undo familiar frames of reference with respect to the political space of incarcerated seekers of sanctuary and share intimate imaginaries of environmentally conceived pathways to healing and justice. * Rita Sakr, Maynooth University, Ireland *Table of ContentsList of Figures Foreword by Tara June Winch Writing in Languages of Freedom by Omid Tofighian Map Part One 2013-2015 - ‘Fighting to Take Back My Identity’: Creating a New Language in Collaboration “Becoming MEG45” by Behrouz Boochani “Unpublished Reports: Untitled and Two Souls, One Body” by Behrouz Boochani “Translating Manus and Nauru: Refugee Writing” by Moones Mansoubi “Collaborating with Behrouz Boochani: Journalists Against a System” by Ben Doherty Part Two 2016 (Feb-April) - A New Theory: Examining the Prison, Exposing the System “This is Manus Island. My Prison. My Torture. My Humiliation” by Behrouz Boochani “Life on Manus: Island of Damned” by Behrouz Boochani “Australia, Exceptional in its Brutality” by Behrouz Boochani “Testifying to History” by Jordana Silverstein Part Three 2016 (June-Dec) - Journalism as Minor Epics: Confrontation, Survival and Death “What it's Like in Solitary Confinement on Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “For Refugees Kidnapped and Exiled to the Manus Prison, Hope is Our Secret Weapon” by Behrouz Boochani “Untitled” by Behrouz Boochani “The Day My Friend Hamid Khazaei Died” by Behrouz Boochani “Faysal Ishak Ahmed’s Life was Full of Pain. Australia Had a Duty to Protect Him” by Behrouz Boochani “Time and Borders, Policy and Lived Experience: A Posthumanist Critique” by Sajad Kabgani “Kurdish Identity and Journalism: Reporting to Record History” by Roza Germian Part Four 2017 (Mar-Sept) - Introducing the Kyriarchal System: Knowing Manus Prison “A Kyriarchal System: New Colonial Experiments/New Decolonial Resistance” by Behrouz Boochani “Unpublished Report: Untitled” by Behrouz Boochani “An Island off Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “The Tortuous Demise of Hamed Shamshiripour, Who Didn’t Deserve to Die on Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “‘The Man Who Loves Ducks’: The Refugee Saving Animals on Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “Epistemic Violence, Aesthetic Breaks, and the Man Who Loves Ducks” by Anne McNevin “Exposing ‘Incalculable Cruelty’: Writings on Border Harms and Atrocity as Resistance” by Victoria Canning Part Five 2017 (Oct-Dec) - The Siege on Manus Prison: 23 Days of Collective Resistance “Days Before the Forced Closure of Manus We Have No Safe Place to Go” by Behrouz Boochani “Diary of Disaster” by Behrouz Boochani “The Refugees Are in a State of Terror on Manus”bu Behrouz Boochani “A Merciless Fear Provoked by Last Night's Events has Gripped the Manus Island Camp” by Behrouz Boochani “Manus is a Landscape of Surreal Horror” by Behrouz Boochani “The Breath of Death on Manus Island: Starvation and Sickness” by Behrouz Boochani “All We Want is Freedom – Not Another Prison Camp” by Behrouz Boochani “I Write from Manus as a Duty to History.” By Behrouz Boochani “A Letter from Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “23 Days of Resistance Alongside Behrouz Boochani” by Shaminda Kanapathi “Words That Escaped from Prison” by Erik Jensen Part Six 2018 (Feb-June) - A Duty to History: Dignity, Time and Identity “Four Years After Reza Barati’s Death, We Still Have No Justice” by Behrouz Boochani “Policy of Exile” by Behrouz Boochani “Mohamed’s Life Story is a Tragedy. But it’s Typical for Father’s Held on Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “The Gay, Transgender and Biosexual men on Manus are Forced into Silence” by Behrouz Boochani “Salim Fled Genocide to Find Safety. He Lost his Life in the Most Tragic Way” by Behrouz Boochani “Manus Island Poem” by Behrouz Boochani “Journalism, Borders and Oppression: The Nauru Context” by Elahe Zivardar and Mehran Ghadiri “On Mothers, Nature and the Body” by Fatima Measham Part Seven 2018 (Aug)-2019 (Apr) - Manus Prison Theory: Creating a Body of Knowledge “Manus Prison Theory” by Behrouz Boochani “Australia Needs a Moral Revolution” by Behrouz Boochani “Five Years in Manus Purgatory” by Behrouz Boochani “’Sam Could Have Been Saved’: Where Does the Money for Healthcare Go on Manus?” by Behrouz Boochani “The Paladin Scandal is Only a Drop in the Ocean of Corruption on Manus and Nauru” by Behrouz Boochani “The 'Papua New Guinea Solution' in Australia's Public Discourse and Human Rights Activism” by Mahnaz Alimardanian “Australian Corruption and the Pacific: Dollars, Displacement and Death” by Helen Davidson Part Eight 2019 (May-Oct) - Writing to Keep Hope Alive/New Dimensions to Systematic Torture “This Election is an Opportunity to Vote for Humanity and Freedom” by Behrouz Boochani “’The Boats are Coming’ is One of the Greatest Lies Told to the Australian People” by Behrouz Boochani “The truth about self-harm in offshore detention” by Behrouz Boochani “Purification by Love” by Behrouz Boochani “Emotion, Responsibility and Hope for Different Futures” by Claudia Tazreiter “Prison Notebooks and the Oceanic-Kurdish Connection: Boochani’s Political Reflectivity” by Steven Ratuva Part Nine 2020 (May-June) – New Narratives and Knowledge: New Writing and Collaboration “As I learn to live in freedom, Australia is still tormenting refugees” by Behrouz Boochani “’A Human Being Feels They Are On a Precipice’: COVID-19’s Threshold Moment” by Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian “Boochani’s ‘Political Poetics’: Subverting and Reimagining the Fiction of Politics” by Anne Surma “Journalism as Dialogue: Creating Collective Activism Through the Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani” by Lida Amiri Part Ten 2020 (Sept) – Neocolonial experiments/Creative resistance “For the refugees Australia Imprisons Music is Liberation, Life and Defiance” by Behrouz Boochani “’White Australia’ Policy Lives On in Immigration Detention” by Behrouz Boochani “On Documentation, Language, and Social Media” by Arianna Grasso “Carceral Coloniality as a History of the Present” by Helena Zeweri List of Contributors
£18.00
Faber & Faber The Letters of John McGahern
Book SynopsisThe collected letters of John McGahern, 'one of the greatest writers of our era' (Hilary Mantel) and 'the most important Irish novelist since Samuel Beckett.' (Guardian)
£16.14