ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisThis guide is written from the conviction that Prophets is a major work of Caribbean poetry, and that whilst it can be read with enjoyment without the aid of a book of this kind, it is a work so rich in local reference and allusion that a little help can enhance the reader's understanding and pleasure. The introduction discusses Prophets in its social and political setting of 1980s Jamaica and the significance of the poem's social geography. It discusses Prophets' relationship to the key texts that influenced it, or against which it was written, including Derek Walcott's Omeros, Sylvia Wynter's The Hills of Hebron and the early novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. The second section of summaries and annotations provides a line by line guide to the poem. This includes notes to its very specific references to the social and cultural manifestations of 1980s Jamaica, identification of places identified in the poem, and notes to the poems' many allusions: to the Bible, but also to other works of literature and to the reggae lyrics that form a bridge between the Bible, the prophetic and Jamaican popular culture.

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Book SynopsisRuth Pitter (1897–1992) may not be widely known, but her credentials as a poet are extensive; in England from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s she maintained a loyal readership. In total she produced 17 volumes of new and collected verse. Her A Trophy of Arms (1936) won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry in 1937, and in 1954 she was awarded the William E. Heinemann Award for The Ermine (1953). Most notably, perhaps, she became the first woman to receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955; this unprecedented event merited a personal audience with the queen.In addition, from 1946 to 1972 she was often a guest on BBC radio programs, and from 1956 to 1960 she appeared regularly on the BBC’s The Brains Trust, one of the first television talk shows; her thoughtful comments on the wide range of issues discussed by the panelists were a favorite among viewers. In 1974 the Royal Society of Literature elected her to its highest honor, a Companion of Literature, and in 1979 she received her last national award when she was appointed a Commander of the British Empire.Pitter’s many admirers included Owen Barfield, Hilaire Belloc, Lord David Cecil, Philip Larkin, C. S. Lewis, Kathleen Raine, May Sarton, and Siegfried Sassoon. At her death in 1992, one writer claimed, “She came to enjoy perhaps the highest reputation of any living English woman poet of her century.”Pitter’s best poems focus on nature and the human condition, taking us to hidden or secret places, just beyond the material, to the meaning of life. Her poems are often the result of a heightened sense of felt experience—intuitive and evocative. If human life is lived behind a veil faintly obscuring reality, Pitter’s poems often lift the edge of the veil.Sudden Heaven arranges Pitter’s poems in chronological order, allowing readers to follow her maturation as a poet, and it features a number of poems that have never before appeared in print.

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Book SynopsisDerick Thomson Ruaraidh MacThòmais was one of the most prolific and influential Scottish Gaelic poets of the twentieth century. His work pushed forward the boundaries of Gaelic poetry, taking it from its traditional heartlands in the Highlands and Islands to Scotland''s Lowland cities, Glasgow in particular. He was the first poet to use free verse consistently in Gaelic, and his poems, both in terms of form and content, had a profound influence on following generations of Gaelic writers.Petra Johana Poncarová's SCOTNOTE examines Thomson's life and work, and his historical, political, cultural and personal influences. It is an ideal introduction for senior school pupils and students of all ages.

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Book SynopsisKey study on writer and activist Kgositsile that presents a new approach to studying the radicalism of Africa and its diaspora and makes a major contribution to the histories of Black lives, gender studies, jazz studies, politics, and creativity.The cultural configurations of the Black Atlantic cannot be fully understood without recognising the significant presence of writers and artists from the African continent itself. Among the most influential was South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile, or 'Bra Willie', as he was affectionately known. Yet, until now, there has been no full-length study of his work. Uhuru Phalafala's wide-ranging book reveals the foundational influence of Kgositsile's mother and grandmother on his craft and unveils the importance of the oral/aural traditions, indigenous knowledge systems, and cosmologies he carried with him into and after exile. It illuminates a southern African modernity that was strongly gendered and deployed in anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and civil rights struggles. Using the original concept of 'elsewhere', the author maps the sources of Kgositsile's transformative verse, which in turn generated 'poetics of possibility' for his contemporaries in the Black Arts and Black Power Movements and beyond - among them Maya Angelou, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tom Dent, members of The Last Poets, Otabenga Jones & Associates, and rapper Earl Sweatshirt - who all looked to his work to model their identities, cultural movements and radical traditions.

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Book SynopsisThis collection offers a variety of scholarly views on illustrated books for Soviet children, covering everything from artistic innovation to state propaganda.Trade Review"One reason this book makes a significant contribution to studies on children’s literature and culture is its remarkable interdisciplinary approach. A persuasive picture of the complicated conditions in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and their influence on children’s literature can only be conveyed if the political, social, historical, and cultural circumstances are considered and related to one another –which this collection has succeeded in doing to a convincing degree." -- Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, University of Tübingen * International Research in Children's Literature *"This magnificent, beautifully produced volume contains over 250 period illustrations, bringing the object of its important and innovative scholarship to life… The enduring value of this edited volume will be both its scholarship and its stunning visuality and ‘gaze-appeal’" -- Megan Swift, University of Victoria * The Russian Review *"For decades to come, The Pedagogy of Images will remain a go-to resource on the early Soviet picture books for literature scholars, historians of public education, researchers of totalitarian art, librarians, and graphic artists." -- Olga Voronina, Bard College * Slavic Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Primers of Soviet Modernity: Depicting Communism for Children in Early Soviet Russia Serguei Alex. Oushakine and Marina Balina Part One: Mediation 1. Three Degrees of Exemplary Boyhood in Boris Kustodiev’s Soviet Paradise Helena Goscilo 2. How the Revolution Triumphed: Alisa Poret’s Textbook of Cultural Iconography Yuri Leving 3. Foto-glaz: Children as Photo-Correspondents in Early Soviet Periodicals Erika Wolf 4. Autonomous Animals Animated: Samozveri as a Constructivist Do It Yourself Book Aleksandar Bošković 5. The Fragile Power of Paper and Projection Birgitte Beck Pristed Part Two: Technology 6. From Nature to “Second Nature” and Back Larissa Rudova 7. The Production of the Man-Machine: The Child as Instrument of Futurity Sara Pankenier Weld 8. Spells of Materialist Magic, or Soviet Children and Electric Power Kirill Chunikin 9. “Do It Yourself!”: Teaching Technological Creativity at the Time of Soviet Industrialization Maria Litovskaia 10. The Camel and the Caboose: Viktor Shklovsky’s Turksib and the Pedagogy of Uneven Development Michael Kunichika 11. Aero-plane, Aero-boat, Aero-sleigh: Propelling Everywhere in Soviet Transportation Katherine M. N. Reischl Part Three: Power 12. Spatializing Revolutionary Temporality: From Montage and Dynamism to Map and Plan Kevin M. F. Platt 13. “Poor, Poor Il’ich”: Visualizing Lenin’s Death for Children Marina Sokolovskaia and Daniil Leiderman 14. Young Soldiers at Play: The Red Army Solder as Icon Stephen M. Norris 15. The Working Body and Its Prostheses: Inventing the Aesthetics and Anatomy of Class for Soviet Children Alexey Golubev 16. Amerikanizm: The Brave New World of Soviet Civilization Thomas Keenan List of Illustrations Contributors

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2022 EISNER AWARD FOR BEST COMICS-RELATED BOOK 'Magnificently marvellous' Junot Diaz 'An account of how a motley gang of accidental collaborators created a vernacular mythology out of the dodgiest of commercial occasions ... a revelation' Jonathan Lethem Every schoolchild recognises their protagonists: the Avengers, the X-Men, your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. The superhero comics that Marvel has published since 1961 make up the biggest self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages and counting. Eighteen of the 100 highest-grossing movies of all time are based on it. And not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing. But Douglas Wolk did. In All Of The Marvels, a critic and superfan takes on the epic to end all epics. What he finds is a magic mirror of the past 60 years, from the atomic terrors of the Cold War to the political divides of our present. The result is an irresistible travel guide to the magic mountain at the heart of popular culture.Trade ReviewBrilliant, eccentric, moving and wholly wonderful ... All of the Marvels is magnificently marvelous. Wolk's work will invite many more alliterative superlatives. It deserves them all -- Junot Díaz * New York Times Book Review *For anyone willing to take [a] step into the inconceivably vast and wonderful world that generations of creators have brought to us, issue by issue, month by month, year by year, All of the Marvels is an indispensable handbook. And for anyone seeking an explanation for the enduring popularity of our modern superhero mythology, Wolk has provided as well-informed and well-argued a thesis as you're likely to find * Forbes *A fascinating pop culture journey ... Wolk is a knowledgeable, generous guide, lighting the potentially more confusing corners of the Marvel Universe with enthusiasm, humour and humility -- Martin Gray * Scotsman *The way Wolk makes sense of, finds beauty in, and connects all the different stories and details is masterful ... A must-read for all Marvel fans, from devotees to newbies, All of the Marvels is a colorful and heartfelt journey through the Marvel Universe, and highlights just what makes this epic feat of storytelling so special * Hypable *[a] love letter to Marvel comics ... Wolk is having fun and it communicates -- Teddy Jamieson * Herald Scotland *Douglas Wolk's naked dive into the Marvel source code is a revelation, a tour both electrifying in its weird charisma, and replenishing in its loving specificity. As an account of how a motley gang of accidental collaborators created a vernacular mythology out of the dodgiest of commercial occasions, it's also a testament, and a tribute -- Jonathan LethemWhat sounds like a madman's quest turns out to be a deeply emotional hero's journey. The best work yet from the best writer about the medium of comics -- Brian K. Vaughan, author * Saga *A generous, freewheeling book ... Wolk is a capable guide, wry, friendly and astute [who] can elucidate not just the chemistry between writers and artists but also the underrated role of colourers and letterers -- Dorian Lynskey * Spectator *Some of us are haunted by the memory of a childhood glimpse of some vast evocative dream; others exasperated by the slick iconography that has taken over our screens, wallets, and eyeballs. If you're like me, it's both. For all of us, Douglas Wolk's naked dive into the Marvel source code is a revelation, a tour both electrifying in its weird charisma, and replenishing in its loving specificity. As an account of how a motley gang of accidental collaborators created a vernacular mythology out of the dodgiest of commercial occasions, it's also a testament, and a tribute. Like Greil Marcus in Mystery Train or Manny Farber in Negative Space, Wolk pushes aside paraphrase to free up an encounter with what's been there all along, homegrown art -- Jonathan Lethem

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Book Synopsis''This is a marvellous, endlessly illuminating book ... It doesn't go on the shelf alongside other critics; it goes on the shelf alongside Dickens'' Howard Jacobson___________________Discover the tricks of a literary master in this essential guide to the fictional world of Charles Dickens. From Pickwick to Scrooge, Copperfield to Twist, how did Dickens find the perfect names for his characters?What was Dickens''s favourite way of killing his characters?When is a Dickens character most likely to see a ghost?Why is Dickens's trickery only fully realised when his novels are read aloud? In thirteen entertaining and wonderfully insightful essays, John Mullan explores the literary machinations of Dickens's eccentric genius, from his delight in clichés to his rendering of smells and his outrageous use of coincidences. A treat for all lovers of Dickens, this essential companion puts his audacity, originality and brilliance on full display.''Brilliantly sharp ... MullTrade ReviewSplendid … Mullan’s book is too rich to capture in a review. Each chapter shoots off in a fresh direction and illuminates it … You must, and should, read Mullan’s book. Even if you know a lot about Dickens you will find revelations in it, and if you know nothing about Dickens and want to learn what makes him great it will be the perfect appetiser -- John Carey * Sunday Times *In this brilliantly sharp book, John Mullan delves into all the ways in which the Great Boz grabs our attention on page one of his novels and refuses to let go until we are deposited a thousand pages later … Mullan is a professor of English literature, which means that he has a forensic eye for how Dickens produces his spellbinding effects … This vastly entertaining book gives the sense that Mullan is a man with a mission … Mullan makes us see that Charles Dickens was one of the most artful, which is to say skilled, writers the world has ever seen -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday *Mullan has taken the most popular Victorian novelist and, by holding different facets of his literary technique up to the light, found new angles from which to admire the work. By the end of this teacherly but readable analysis, Dickens’s novels are sparkling as if spring-cleaned … Surrendering to Mullan’s guided tour, we are swept into the world of Pip and Magwitch, Scrooge, the Boffins, Lady Dedlock, and a host of other familiar and much loved, loathed or pitiable characters from his extensive portrait gallery … The Artful Dickens is a fulsome tribute to a writer whose commonly perceived flaws are part of what makes him great -- Rosemary Goring * Herald *A spritely and surprising study of Dickens … Mullan wears his formidable learning lightly in revealing how a teeming imagination made it on to the page * New Statesman *The Artful Dickens is full of such nuggets. Put it on your Christmas list and spend the post-goose collapse reading the good bits aloud -- Laura Freeman * The Times *John Mullan is that rare bird, a literary critic you want to read. His vigorous prose style, his generosity and acumen, his freedom from jargon, and the fact that he is an entertainer in his own right, make him the ideal guide to Dickens' genius. This is a marvellous, endlessly illuminating book – pointing even the most knowledgeable Dickensians to scenes they hadn’t noticed, sentences they hadn’t remembered, “tricks and ploys” they’d never sufficiently appreciated. It doesn’t go on the shelf alongside other critics; it goes on the shelf alongside Dickens -- Howard JacobsonA feast of Dickensian knowledge * The Times *Excellent … The closer we look, the better the novels get. The Artful Dickens is both an exposure of the trickster’s methods and a celebration of close reading … Enlightening … If Mullan put into his hat a creator of gargoyles and spinner of melodrama, he pulled out an innovator who broke all the rules. The Artful Dickens made me feel that I had been in some form of trance during my earlier reading of these novels -- Frances Wilson * Guardian *The most enlivening book about Dickens in the last thirty years, and very warmly recommended * Standpoint *

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Book SynopsisOne of the hottest topics in education today is trauma-informed pedagogy. Much of what has been written in this area comes from counselors, therapists, and other experts in this field, but there is very little written specifically about the effects of trauma on English learners. This book has been written to address this need.

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Four o''clock in the morning, and the lights are on and still there''s no way we''re going to sleep, not after the film we just saw. The book we just read. Fear is one of the most primal human emotions, and one of the hardest to reason with and dispel. So why do we scare ourselves? It seems almost mad that we would frighten ourselves for fun, and yet there are thousands of books, films, games, and other forms of entertainment designed to do exactly that.As Darryl Jones shows, the horror genre is huge. Ranging from vampires, ghosts, and werewolves to mad scientists, Satanists, and deranged serial killers, the cathartic release of scaring ourselves has made its appearance in everything from Shakespearean tragedies to internet memes. Exploring the key tropes of the genre, including its monsters, its psychological chills, and its love affair with the macabre, this Very Short Introduction discusses why horror stories disturb us, and how society responds to literary and film representations of the gruesome and taboo. Should the enjoyment of horror be regarded with suspicion? Are there different levels of the horrific, and should we distinguish between the commonly reviled carnage of contemporary torture porn and the culturally acceptable bloodbaths of ancient Greek tragedies?Analysing the way in which horror manifests multiple personalities, and has been used throughout history to articulate the fears and taboos of the current generation, Darryl Jones considers the continuing evolution of the genre today. As horror is mass marketed to mainstream society in the form of romantic vampires and blockbuster hits, it also continues to maintain its former shadowy presence on the edges of respectability, as banned films and violent internet phenomena push us to question both our own preconceptions and the terrifying capacity of human nature.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.First published in hardback as Sleeping with the Lights on.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition What comes across most vividly is [Jones's] passion for the subject: this is a book that makes a reader want to read, to watch, and to listen more carefully. Oxford University Press, too, are to be commended for the low retail price and the quality production ... This is a fine introduction to, and defence of, a typically various popular form. In an age of anxieties new and old, Jones's exploration of taboo, control, and the politics of fear, seems particularly timely and potent. * Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times *Darryl Jones' beautifully packaged book ... is the perfect gift for a horror-head. Written with enthusiasm and incredible research, it bounces between breakout and iconic moments across literature, film, folklore, science and psychology. Truly fascinating if sometimes scary reading. * Emerald Street *[A] beautifully designed publication, small enough to slip in a handbag and short enough to be read in one or two sittings ... For those outside the field whod like to know more, this is an excellent place to start and even for those within it, this is an object lesson in concision of thought and precision of argument. I enjoyed it a great deal. * Linnie Blake, Times Higher Education *a concise, knowledgeable survey of the entire phenomenon of horror * David Sexton, Evening Standard *Jones packs more into 181 pages than many similar volumes do that are three times the size ... This is an academic exploration that's refreshingly easy to read, with plenty of original and genuinely fascinating content to enjoy ... Whether you're a devotee who bloodily soaks up everything from the latest Stephen King novel to the newest James Wan opus or simply someone who likes to stay on top of the cultural zeitgeist, Sleeping With The Lights On is the best book about the intricacies of horror that we've read in a long time. * Ian White, Starburst *Equal parts love letter and academic invitation, this assemblage of analysts urges you to discover how horror's cultural connection truly affects our society, by inspecting the primal side of our fascination with the weird, the horrid and the downright disturbing. * Ahlissa Eichhorn, Fangoria Magazine *Intelligent but still accessible ... We dig the lightbulb-shaped diecut on the cover. * SFX *Although this volume ... is quite slim, Jones makes a convincing case, especially for newcomers and students making their first steps into the genre in an academic capacity ... a pleasant, quick and entertaining read. * Iain MacLeod, Gore in the Store *Jones' passion for and love of his subject matter shines through on every page of this deceptively slim volume ... The book is immensely readable, with all the pace, momentum, and drive of a compelling thriller ... If you are even the least bit interested in the horror genre this book is a fine purchase. It will educate, inform, and illuminate a genre that almost revels in its obfuscation and slipperiness. For the fan of horror, Sleeping with the Lights On is a great companion to discover aspects of the history of horror, to dig deeper into films and books you may not be aware of. But more than that; for the horror writers amongst us, it's an absolute necessity. It is inspirational and affirming, infectious in its enthusiasm. A must-buy if you take your craft seriously, if you're sincere about the business of horror. * Paul Michaels, This is Horror *This welcome contribution to horror's critical bibliography is an extensive resource, though short in length. Sleeping with the Lights On will be essential reading for fellow scholars of the dark arts, and it is easily accessible for the everyday reader and horror fan more generally ... This new book ... will undoubtedly inspire thought-provoking critical studies of horror's future; for now, it remains an unsettling but mesmerising story of culture's most strongest and oldest emotion. * Benjamin E. Noad, Gothic Imagination *This analysis is not as long as it might be, but it is ... engaging, thoughtful and informative. As such it is likely that even seasoned fantasy horror collectors will learn something new, or find a fresh perspective * Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation *Sleeping with the Lights On is a book that every fan of the genre should read, it is also a book that every fan of the genre should give to that one person they know who thinks the genre is a just shock for the sake of shock, devoid of all artistic or intellectual merit. If this book doesn't change their mind, then nothing will. * Ginger Nuts of Horror *a fascinating little book ... Even if horror is a seasonal (trick or) treat for you, you will come away with a greater appreciation of that which haunts and unsettles you. * Sublime Horror *A terrific examination of horror in all its incarnations - literature, movies etc. * Books Monthly *an excellent read short enough to be approachable but with plenty of breadth and depth in the discussions. * FictionFan's Book Reviews *A fascinating & succinct jaunt through the history of #Horror in six vampire-bite-sized sections. The writing is engaging & detailed. An essential addition to any coffin-side table ... * The Ghastling *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Monsters 2: The occult and the supernatural 3: Horror and the body 4: Horror and the mind 5: Science and horror 6: Afterword: horror since the millenium Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThe winner of the Nobel Trize for Literature, the twentieth century''s most famous poet and its most influential literary arbiter, T.S. Eliot has long been thought to be an obscure and difficult poet--forbiddingly learned, maddeningly enigmatic. Now, in this brilliant exploration of T.S. Eliot''s work, prize-winning poet Craig Raine reveals that, on the contrary, Eliot''s poetry (and drama and criticism) can be seen as a unified and coherent body of work. Indeed, despite its manifest originality, its radical experimentation, and its dazzling formal variety, his verse yields meaning just as surely as other more conventional poetry. Raine argues that an implicit controlling theme--the buried life, or the failure of feeling--unfolds in surprisingly varied ways throughout Eliot''s work. But alongside Eliot''s desire to live with all intensity was also a distrust of violent emotion for its own sake. Raine illuminates this paradoxical Eliot--an exacting anti-romantic realist, skeptical of tTrade ReviewThis is a thoughtful book on a thorny subject. * John Montague, Irish Times (Dublin) *The book is excellent on the influence on Eliot of Jules Laforge, and has a poet's astute ear for the stray effects of sound and syntax. * Terry Eagleton, Prospect *A lively new book. * Bernard O'Donoghue, Literary Review *The most attractive quality of Raine's mind, in this book, is its vivacity, its enthusiasm, its racy pleasure in turning aside to compare a detail in Eliot with something in Nabokov, Kundera or Lawrence. * Denis Donoghue, London Review of Books *a fabulous stimulating book, which marries old-fashioned literary criticism to pleasingly off-beam cultural allusions. * Ian Thomson, The Spectator *This book is an ingenious and convincing demonstration that Eliot is still the Old Possum: lying unassertively low, but anxiously aware that the disinterment of the buried life is an undeniable imperative. But most importantly, it shows perceptively why Eliot's poems work with their unique compulsiveness. * Bernard O'Donoghue, Literary Review *(Eliot's) existence is in his published work. This explains the strategy of Raine's short monograph - an intensely argued reading of the words on the published page. The exercise is done brilliantly. A poet himself, Raine is hyper alert to nuance. He has a sensitivity to literary echo rivalling that of the greatest living reader of Eliot, Christopher Ricks. * John Sutherland, Financial Times *There are authors who one would rather read about than read. T.S Eliot is not one of them, yet there is both pleasure and profit to be got from Craig Raine's new study of the poet. * John Bayley, Times Literary Supplement *Do we need another book about him? The answer, given Craig Raine's T.S. Eliot, is a strong 'Yes'. * Sean O'Brien, Sunday Times (Culture) *A good guide to the historical and literary origins of the poems. * Philip Hensher, The Daily Telegraph *A new, more accessible Eliot * Michiko Kakutani, International Herald Tribune *Raine succeeds in clarifying the emotional atmosphere of poems that readers often find forbidding...[his] thematic summaries are surely not wrong...and they help to orient a first reading of Eliot's work * Adam Kirsch, Literary Criticism, The Times Literary Supplement no5420 *a superb introduction to a great poet and a lovable man. * Contemporary Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Eliot and the Buried Life The Failure to Live Eliot as Classicist The Waste Land Four Quartets The Drama The Criticism Appendix One: Eliot and Anti-Semitism Appendix Two: Translations of "Lune De Miel" and "Dans Le Restaurant" Appendix Three: Eliot Chronology

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Book SynopsisItalian Modernism was written in response to the need for an historiographic and theoretical reconsideration of the concepts of Decadentismo and the avant-garde within the Italian critical tradition. Focussing on the confrontation between these concepts and the broader notion of international modernism, the essays in this important collection seek to understand this complex phase of literary and artistic practices as a response to the epistemes of philosophical and scientific modernity at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first three decades of the twentieth.Intellectually provocative, this collection is the first attempt in the field of Italian Studies at a comprehensive account of Italian literary modernism. Each contributor documents how previous critical categories, employed to account for the literary, artistic, and cultural experiences of the period, have provided only partial and inadequate descriptions, preventing a fuller understanding of the

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Book SynopsisThis new volume of JHU Press's landmark Shelley edition contains posthumous poems edited from original manuscripts. The world will surely one day feel what it has lost, wrote Mary Shelley after Percy Bysshe Shelley's premature death in July 1822. Determined to hasten that day, she recovered his unpublished and uncollected poems and sifted through his surviving notebooks and papers. In Genoa during the winter of 182223, she painstakingly transcribed poetry interlined and broken into fragments, so that the sense could only be deciphered and joined by guesses. Blasphemy and sedition laws prevented her from including her husband's most outspoken radical works, but the resulting volume, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824), was a magnificent display of Shelley's versatility and craftsmanship between 1816 and 1822. Few such volumes have made more difference to an author's reputation. The seventh volume of the acclaimed Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley extracts from PosthuTrade ReviewRigorously, enthusiastically, and innovatively edited, this volume has brought excitement and zest to my Shelley-reading life.—Australian Book ReviewWith volume seven raising the bar once again, this series is the gold standard for Shelley scholarship. Its expert and illuminating readings are peerless.—Madeleine Callaghan, University of Sheffield, The Coleridge BulletinCPPBS 7 is set to become a model for editing modern poetry manuscripts. It strikes a difficult balance between philological rigor and scholarly comprehensiveness on the one hand and readability and usability at different levels of expertise on the other. Textual critics and students of Shelley's poetry will find it equally indispensable, but it will also serve as an important reference work for Mary Shelley scholars.—Valentina Varinelli, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, European Romantic ReviewThis outstanding installment of an epoch-making edition of Shelley's verse will transform the opportunities afforded to emerging Shelley scholars.—Anthony Howe, Birmingham City University, UK, Review of English Studies...this volume is a triumph, it is breathtaking, it is monumental, it is a summa.—Byron JournalQuite possibly the most significant publication among this year's Romantic studies,The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume Seven, edited by Nora Crook, is a magisterial scholarly edition of Shelley's posthumously published poems, including "The Triumph of Life" and many other fragments that Mary Shelley first edited, including some of his most beloved shorter lyrics. Part of the ongoing editorial project now directed by Crook and Neil Fraistat, Volume Seven arrives as a stunning and indispensable book, modeling both textual stewardship and critical acumen.—Studies in English Literature 1500-1900Exciting revelations, new connections, and editorial discoveries abound in volume seven, which is testament to the brilliance of one of our greatest scholars and editors of the Shelleys, Nora Crook.—Keats-Shelley ReviewTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsEditorial OverviewAbbreviationsTEXTSFrom the Triumph MS and Posthumous Poems (Opening Section) The Triumph of Life Lyric Fragments from the Triumph MS "An Unfinished Drama"From Posthumous Poems: Miscellaneous Poems "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci" "The Fugitives" "The sun is set, the swallows are asleep"Lyrics for Mary W. Shelley's Proserpine and Midas "Arethusa" "Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth" "Song of Apollo" "Song of Pan" Autumn A Dirge "Our boat is asleep in Serchio's stream" The Zucca The good die first— The Two Spirits. An Allegory "Tomorrow" "They die—the dead return not" "O World, O Life, O Time" "Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me" "I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden—" "My lost William, thou in whom" "A Portal as of shadowy adamant" "The flower that smiles today" From the Arabic—imitation "One word is too often profaned" "Music" "Death is here, and death is there" "When passion's trance is overpast" "Listen, listen, Mary mine—" "O Mary dear, that you were here" "Wilt thou forget the happy hours" "The fiery mountains answer each other" "Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed" "There was a little lawny islet" "Rose leaves, when the rose is dead" "Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years" "Tell me, Star, whose wings of light" "Rough wind that moanest loud" "Far, far away, O ye" Jan. 1. 1821From Posthumous Poems: Fragments "Ginevra" The Historical Tragedy of Charles the First "Mazenghi" "The Woodman and the Nightingale" "Art thou pale for weariness" "I loved—alas, our life is love" "And like a dying lady lean and pale" "These are two friends whose lives were undivided"COMMENTARIESFrom the Triumph MS and Posthumous Poems (Opening Section) The Triumph of Life Lyric Fragments from the Triumph MS "An Unfinished Drama"From Posthumous Poems: Miscellaneous Poems "On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci" "The Fugitives" "The sun is set, the swallows are asleep" Lyrics for Mary W. Shelley's Proserpine and Midas Autumn A Dirge (and Supplements) "Our boat is asleep in Serchio's stream" The Zucca The good die first— The Two Spirits. An Allegory "Tomorrow" "They die—the dead return not" "O World, O Life, O Time" "Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me" "I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden—" "My lost William, thou in whom" "A Portal as of shadowy adamant" "The flower that smiles today" From the Arabic—imitation "One word is too often profaned" "Music" "Death is here, and death is there" "When passion's trance is overpast" "Listen, listen, Mary mine" "O Mary dear, that you were here" "Wilt thou forget the happy hours" "The fiery mountains answer each other" "Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed" "There was a little lawny islet" "Rose leaves, when the rose is dead" "Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years" "Tell me, Star, whose wings of light" "Rough wind that moanest loud" "Far, far away, O ye" Jan. 1. 1821From Posthumous Poems: Fragments "Ginevra" The Historical Tragedy of Charles the First "Mazenghi" "The Woodman and the Nightingale" "Art thou pale for weariness" "I loved—alas, our life is love" "And like a dying lady lean and pale" "These are two friends whose lives were undivided"HISTORICAL COLLATIONSFrom the Triumph MS and Posthumous Poems (Opening Section)From Posthumous Poems: Miscellaneous PoemsFrom Posthumous Poems: FragmentsAPPENDIXESA. Contents of Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824), Together with a List of Manuscript Sources of Items in This VolumeB. Mary W. Shelley's Preface to Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824)C. Source for "Ginevra": Marco Lastri, L'osservatore fiorentinoD. Charles the First: Ancillary Material I. PBS's Reading Notes II. Sketch of Acts I and II III. Jottings (Preliminary) ContributorsIndex of TitlesIndex of First Lines

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Book SynopsisConfessions is a spiritual autobiography of Augustine's early life, family, associations, and explorations of alternative religious and theological viewpoints as he moved toward his conversion. Cast as a prayer addressed to God, it offers a gripping personal story and a philosophical exploration destined to have broad and lasting impact.Trade ReviewHammond’s translation, while always elegant and lucid, stays close enough to the Latin to give us invaluable assistance… An accessible and scholarly introduction provides a way into many aspects of Augustine’s thought which will reward both those who are new to Augustine and more experienced students. -- Edward Dowler * Church Times *

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Book SynopsisA New Statesman essential non-fiction book of 2021Featured in Book Riot''s 12 best nonfiction books about Black identity and historyA Times Higher Education Book of the Week2022 Finalist for the Prose Awards (Media and Cultural Studies category)Why are there so many examples of public figures, entertainers, and normal, everyday people in blackface? And why aren't there as many examples of people of color in whiteface? This book explains what blackface is, why it occurred, and what its legacies are in the 21st century. There is a filthy and vile threadsometimes it's tied into a noosethat connects the first performances of Blackness on English stages, the birth of blackface minstrelsy, contemporary performances of Blackness, and anti-Black racism. Blackface examines that history and provides hope for a future with new performance paradigms. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewExamines Hollywood’s painful, enduring ties to racist performances. * Variety *Sharp … In explicitly laying out the history and costs of blackface performance, [Ayanna Thompson] fully meets her stated aim of offering an accessible book that constitutes part of an ongoing "arc toward justice." * Times Higher Education *Blackface reveals a legacy of performance that is pointed and detrimental, known but purposely forgotten. Thompson’s analysis is exquisite and exact. A new entry for the historical record. * Ibram X. Kendi, Founding Director, Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, and author of How to Be An Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning *Essential! This is a lucid, engaging, and long overdue exorcism of American culture's greatest haunt. * Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Associate Director, Playwriting MFA program, Hunter College, CUNY, USA, recipient of the Obie Award for Best New American Play (Appropriate, An Octoroon) and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Gloria, Everybody) *A truly eye-opening, defiant, must-read. * West End Best Friend *Wide-ranging and hard-hitting… a passionate, well-informed, and gripping read… another triumph for Object Lessons. * New York Journal of Books *This is great book, brave and clear, with excellent analyses and memorable arguments and examples. * Aleks Sierz *For Ayanna Thompson, the Arizona-based author of a new book titled Blackface, understanding the present moment requires exploring the past, including ways systemic racism is rooted and reflected in blackface performance … Drawing examples from popular culture and performance history, Thompson expertly dismantles various defenses of blackface minstrelsy. * City Sun Times *Crisp and clearly argued. * The Sydney Morning Herald *Table of Contents1. Why write this book? 2. Megyn Kelly, Justin Trudeau, or [fill in another public figure’s name] 3. What is blackface? 4. Why does blackface exist? Because of Uppity Negros, of course! 5. What is the legacy of blackface? The impact on white actors 6. What is the legacy of blackface? The impact on black actors 7. Conclusion: I can’t breathe Index

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Book SynopsisThe Mausoleum of Lovers comprises Guibert's journals, kept from 1976-1991. Functioning as an atelier, it forecasts the writing of a novel, which does not materialize as such; the journal itself - a mausoleum of lovers - comes to take its place. The sensual exigencies and untempered forms of address in this epistolary work, often compared to Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, use the letter and the photograph in a work that hovers between forms, in anticipation of its own disintegration.

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Book SynopsisA survey of the motif of the revenant, showing how medieval themes and motifs persist today. The proliferation of books and films about the "undead", those literally returning from the grave, in modern popular culture has been commented on as a recent phenomenon, but it is in fact a storytelling tradition going back more than a millennium. It drew on and was influenced by Christian eschatology, gathered momentum in medieval ecclesiastical chronicles, such as those written by Caesarius of Heisterbach, and then migrated into imaginative literature - famously in John Lydgate's Dance of Death - and art. But why did revenant stories and imagery take such a hold in the Middle Ages? And why has that fascination held on into today's world? This book offers a history of these revenant narratives, demonstrating how modern horror is haunted by past literature and exploring the motif of the risen dead as a focus of cultural anxiety and literary effort. The author examines the long arc of revenant tales from antiquity and the Middle Ages through the Reformation and into modernity, tracing their uncanny similarities and laying bare the rich traditions of narrative, theme, motif, supernatural belief and eschatological fears and preoccupations.Trade Review[T]his book remains an original and thought-provoking study of a hitherto under-researched topic. -- FolkloreTable of ContentsIntroduction: 'The Graves, All Gaping Wide, Every One Lets Forth His Sprite' The Corpse in Christianity: The Dead, Mostly Dead and Very Special Dead The Religious Revenant The Corpse as Admonition, Art and Bogeyman The Reformed Revenant The Dead Rise - in Literature Conclusion Envoi: In the time of plague Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExam Board: AQALevel: GCSE Grade 9-1Subject: English LiteratureSuitable for the 2024 examsEverything you need to revise for your GCSE 9-1 set text in a snap guideEverything you need to score top marks on your GCSE Grade 9-1 English Literature exam is right at your fingertips! Revise Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro in a snap with this new GCSE Grade 9-1 Snap Revision Text Guide from Collins. Refresh your knowledge of the plot, context, characters and themes and pick up top tips along the way to ace your AQA exam. Each topic is explained in an easy-to-read format so you can get straight to the point. Then, put your skills to the test with plenty of practice questions included in every section. The Snap Text Guides are packed with every quote and extract you need. We've even included examples of how to plan and write your essay responses! This Collins English Literature revision guide contains all the key information you need to practise and pass.

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Book SynopsisA detailed study of the Great Mongol Shahnama, considered to be the greatest of all Persian illustrated manuscripts​The Great Mongol Shahnama is widely considered to be the definitive version of Firdausi’s epic poem, and the greatest of all Persian illustrated manuscripts. The paintings from this manuscript are held in private collections and institutions around the world, and have only been seen together in a single volume once since they were originally dispersed. This monograph reunites the paintings and reproduces them as 67 full-page, high quality color plates, alongside an analysis by leading scholar of Islamic art, Robert Hillenbrand. With newly commissioned photographs and insights into technical aspects of the paintings, The Great Mongol Shahnama is a comprehensive resource for those interested in Persian art and manuscripts. Distributed for Hali Publications Ltd. and the Freer Sackler, Smithsonian. Co-published by Hali Publications Ltd. and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, and supported by Qatar Museums. Exhibition Schedule:Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC (December 2020–June 2021)

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Book SynopsisOn First Principles by Origen of Alexandria, written around 220-230 AD, is one of the most important and contentious works of early Christianity. It provoked controversy when written, provoked further debate when translated into Latin by Rufinus in the fourth century, and was the subject, together with its author, of condemnation in the sixth century. As a result, the work no longer survives intact in the original Greek. We only have the complete work in the Latin translation of Rufinus, and a few extensive passages preserved in Greek by being excerpted into the Philokalia of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. John Behr provides a new edition and translation of one of the most important texts from early Christianity. He includes an invaluable introduction, which provides a clear structure of the work with significant implications for how the text is to be read and for understanding the character of theology in the early Christian tradition.

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Book SynopsisMarlene thinks the eighties are going to be stupendous. Her sister Joyce has her doubts. Her daughter Angie is just frightened. Since its premiere in 1982, Top Girls has become a seminal play of the modern theatre. Set during a period of British politics dominated by the presence of the newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Churchill's play prompts us to question our notions of women''s success and solidarity. Its sharp look at the society and politics of the 1980s is combined with a timeless examination of women''s choices and restrictions regarding career and family.This new Student Edition features an introduction by Sophie Bush, Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, UK prepared with the contemporary student in mind. METHUEN DRAMA STUDENT EDITIONS are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays from the modern and classic repertoires. A well as the complete text of the play itself, this volume contains: A chronology of the play and the playwTrade ReviewTop Girls has a combination of directness and complexity, which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert. You can smell life, and at the same time, feel locked in an argument with an agile and passionate mind. -- John Peter * Sunday Times *The work builds to a superb emotion-draining climax that sent me out of the theatre convinced that this is the best British play ever from a woman dramatist -- Michael Billington * Guardian *[Churchill's] play is brilliantly conceived with considerable wit to illuminate the underlying deep human seriousness of her theme -- Bryan Robertson * Spectator *Table of ContentsChronology (Churchill's life and work, alongside significant political, social and cultural events) Contexts * Historical contexts (women’s rights/advancement; Thatcher’s Britain) * Theatrical contexts (The Royal Court; Max Stafford Clark; production history; critical responses) * The play today (an interview with David Shirley, director of the play in 2014) Themes * Women and work * Female Genealogy: Mothers and daughters (killing your mother; giving up your daughter); sisters (and sisterhood); 'Herstory'/re-finding women's histories * Women’s ability/freedom to occupy multiple/conflicting roles * Women aping masculine behaviour/dress/passing as men * 'Getting away'/freedom/travel/social mobility * Class (individualism vs socialism; economic/social mobility; materialism vs human compassion; 'successful' women ignoring the plight of less fortunate women) Dramatic Technique * Language * Structure * Characterisation/multi-roling Academic Debate (including suggestions for further reading) Related Work Play Text (with on-page glossing/notes) Glossary of Dramatic Terms

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Book SynopsisThis guide helps make Shakespeare's play more accessible. It contains a complete text of the original work, along with a line-by-line modernisation and plenty of helpful commentary.

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Book SynopsisDelve into a legendary literary love affair'I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone. I just miss you...'At a dinner party in 1922, Virginia Woolf met the renowned author, aristocrat - and sapphist - Vita Sackville-West. Virginia wrote in her diary that she didn't think much of Vita's conversation, but she did think very highly of her legs. It was to be the start of almost twenty years of flirtation, friendship, and literary collaboration. Their correspondence ended only with Virginia's death in 1941.Intimate and playful, these selected letters and diary entries allow us to hear these women's constantly changing feelings for each other in their own words. Eavesdrop on the affair that inspired Virginia to write her most fantastical novel, Orlando, and discover a relationship that - even a hundred years later - feels radical and relatable.WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM ALISON BECHDEL, AUTHOR OF FUN HOME AND CREATOR OF THE BECHDEL TEST.Trade Review"A deliciously tactile volume of love letters; I've been carrying them around the house, dipping in and out, and finding new things each time. As Vita said of Mrs Dalloway, they bewilder, illuminate and reveal" - Nino Strachey, author of Rooms of Their Own -- Nino Strachey, author of Rooms of Their Own

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Book SynopsisSuperb, highly accessible biography of one of the giants of English literature by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A THOUSAND ACRES'Engaging and stimulating' Simon CallowTrade ReviewEngaging and stimulating -- Simon CallowJane Smiley, in her admirable contribution to Weidenfeld's series of short biographies, deals briskly with Dickens's career and works, and treats with sympathy and sense his relations with the women in his life * LITERARY REVIEW *

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Book SynopsisThe Cahiers Series continues its exploration of translation in all its aspects with this fascinating account of how a writer can translate beloved images into words.

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Book SynopsisDeep within New York’s compelling, sprawling history lives an odd, ornery Manhattan native named Diedrich Knickerbocker. This book invites readers into the world of Knickerbocker, the antihero who surprised everyone by becoming the standard-bearer for the city’s exceptional sense of self, or what we now call a New York “attitude.” Trade Review"A briskly engaging book." -- Christopher Benfey * New York Review of Books *"This is cultural history at its best." * The Journal of American Culture *"Elizabeth L. Bradley sorts, catalogues and deciphers the shifting Knickerbocker currents in a metropolis constantly reinventing itself. She does the sturdy Dutchman proud in a scholarly and polished rendition." * The Star-Ledger *"An engaging account of the city through the fictional Knickerbocker, who was a steady presence 'over two centuries of wrenching urban transformation, from the post-colonial to the postmodern.' ... Bradley is a perceptive and lively writer and does a superb job of tracing the many strands of the Knickerbocker myth. She provides the historical context necessary to illustrate the ways the Knickerbocker brand was invoked and provides deft analysis of the cultural meanings it accrued." * Bookforum *"Diedrich Knickerbocker...gets a history and identity worthy of New York's swagger in this exploration by Bradley of how Knickerbocker shaped the city's identity. Literary historians and proud New Yorkers alike will delight in the character who brought pomp and legend to the city first nicknamed Gotham by Washington Irving 200 years ago." * Publishers Weekly *"Brims with information about the burgeoning use of Knickerbocker as a literary device in novels, newspaper articles, and advertisements as a touchstone of popular culture. Entertaining enough for the general reader—including those planning a trip to one of the world's most visited cities—and amply annotated for the scholar, this is highly recommended." * Library Journal *"These days the word 'knickerbocker' represents 'little more than a comical handle, a Dutch-inflected sound—or a heartbreaking season at Madison Square Garden,' observes Elizabeth Bradley in Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York. Her slender, charming volume aims to change that. Bradley delves into the 200-year history of the term, which originated in Washington Irving's 1809 History of New York and given that New Yorkers are famously preoccupied with their own exceptionalism, they would do well to learn more about one of the city's original boosters." * Barnes & Noble Review *"Knickerbocker is a very valuable work, particularly as one of the few contemporary histories to explore how fictional texts and reading practices can have material effects on a particular place. Bradley's analysis of Knickerbocker's significance will be of great interest to literary scholars and historians of the American nineteenth century, and her counternarrative of New York's development will reward the professional and general reader alike." * Clio *"Knickerbocker is a storied name steeped in tradition—one that I am proud to have been a part of. Bradley's Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York offers a unique examination of how a name familiarized by Washington Irving two hundred years ago grew to become a cultural symbol of New York." -- Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley"Those who puzzle at the incessant branding and rebranding of New York City would do well to read this fascinating, sophisticated, and witty social history of a myth. Bradley knows her facts and shrewdly and convincingly interprets them. A delightful contribution to urban studies." -- Phillip Lopate * author of Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan *"Is New York different from other cities, or does it just have different myths? Focusing on a tale first spun by Washington Irving two centuries ago, Knickerbocker answers this question with grace and skill. It is a delight to read." -- Kenneth T. Jackson * editor-in-chief, The Encyclopedia of New York *"A briskly engaging book." -- Christopher Benfey * New York Review of Books *"This is cultural history at its best." * The Journal of American Culture *"Elizabeth L. Bradley sorts, catalogues and deciphers the shifting Knickerbocker currents in a metropolis constantly reinventing itself. She does the sturdy Dutchman proud in a scholarly and polished rendition." * The Star-Ledger *"An engaging account of the city through the fictional Knickerbocker, who was a steady presence 'over two centuries of wrenching urban transformation, from the post-colonial to the postmodern.' ... Bradley is a perceptive and lively writer and does a superb job of tracing the many strands of the Knickerbocker myth. She provides the historical context necessary to illustrate the ways the Knickerbocker brand was invoked and provides deft analysis of the cultural meanings it accrued." * Bookforum *"Diedrich Knickerbocker...gets a history and identity worthy of New York's swagger in this exploration by Bradley of how Knickerbocker shaped the city's identity. Literary historians and proud New Yorkers alike will delight in the character who brought pomp and legend to the city first nicknamed Gotham by Washington Irving 200 years ago." * Publishers Weekly *"Brims with information about the burgeoning use of Knickerbocker as a literary device in novels, newspaper articles, and advertisements as a touchstone of popular culture. Entertaining enough for the general reader—including those planning a trip to one of the world's most visited cities—and amply annotated for the scholar, this is highly recommended." * Library Journal *"These days the word 'knickerbocker' represents 'little more than a comical handle, a Dutch-inflected sound—or a heartbreaking season at Madison Square Garden,' observes Elizabeth Bradley in Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York. Her slender, charming volume aims to change that. Bradley delves into the 200-year history of the term, which originated in Washington Irving's 1809 History of New York and given that New Yorkers are famously preoccupied with their own exceptionalism, they would do well to learn more about one of the city's original boosters." * Barnes & Noble Review *"Knickerbocker is a very valuable work, particularly as one of the few contemporary histories to explore how fictional texts and reading practices can have material effects on a particular place. Bradley's analysis of Knickerbocker's significance will be of great interest to literary scholars and historians of the American nineteenth century, and her counternarrative of New York's development will reward the professional and general reader alike." * Clio *"Knickerbocker is a storied name steeped in tradition—one that I am proud to have been a part of. Bradley's Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York offers a unique examination of how a name familiarized by Washington Irving two hundred years ago grew to become a cultural symbol of New York." -- Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley"Those who puzzle at the incessant branding and rebranding of New York City would do well to read this fascinating, sophisticated, and witty social history of a myth. Bradley knows her facts and shrewdly and convincingly interprets them. A delightful contribution to urban studies." -- Phillip Lopate * author of Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan *"Is New York different from other cities, or does it just have different myths? Focusing on a tale first spun by Washington Irving two centuries ago, Knickerbocker answers this question with grace and skill. It is a delight to read." -- Kenneth T. Jackson * editor-in-chief, The Encyclopedia of New York *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction The Picture of Knickerbocker Inheriting Knickerbocker Fashioning a Knickerbocracy Knickerbocker in a New Century Conclusion Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThis collection provides an invaluable account of post-Soviet Russian literature in its historical, cultural and political contexts. An international team of leading commentators on contemporary Russia cover the most important trends, topics, authors and texts in Russian literature after Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn in a wide range of literary genres.Trade Review'The editors' stated goal was to offer 'the first attempt at an integral study of Russian literature after the breakup of the Soviet Union' … In this they have succeeded admirably. This collection offers a simultaneously readable and thoughtful assessment of approximately forty texts and forty writers and a compelling overview of broad literary trends and developments.' Margaret Ziolkowski, The Russian Review'This richly detailed compendium of essays will be of interest to scholars, students of contemporary Russian literature and culture, and pedagogues' Elizabeth Skomp, The Slavonic and East European ReviewTable of Contents1. The burden of freedom: Russian literature after Communism Evgeny Dobrenko and Mark Lipovetsky; 2. Recycling of the Soviet Evgeny Dobrenko; 3. (Post)ideological novel Serguei Alex. Oushakine; 4. Historical novel Kevin M. F. Platt; 5. Dystopias and catastrophe tales after Chernobyl Eliot Borenstein; 6. Magical historicism Alexander Etkind; 7. Petropoetics Ilya Kalinin; 8. Postmodernist novel Mark Lipovetsky; 9. Narrating trauma Helena Goscilo; 10. (Auto)biographical prose Marina Balina; 11. The legacy of the Underground Poets Catherine Ciepiela; 12. New lyrics Stephanie Sandler; 13. Narrative poetry Ilya Kukulin; 14. New drama Boris Wolfson; Works cited.

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Book SynopsisKatherine Kretler plumbs the virtues of the Homeric poems as scripts for solo performance. What is lost in the journey from the stage to the page? The book focuses on the performer not as transparent mediator, but as one haunted by multiple stories, bringing suppressed voices to the surface.Trade ReviewThis study will be of great interest to advanced scholars. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisJill Jarvis examines the crucial role that writers and artists have played in cultivating historical memory and nurturing political resistance in Algeria, showing how literature offers the unique ability to reckon with colonial violence and to render the experiences of those marginalized by the state.Trade Review“Decolonizing Memory is a remarkable account of literature as a form of witnessing and the aesthetic as the primary register for imagining the unthinkable. Presented with elegance and a keen attention to language, the book locates Algeria at the center of the traumas of the twentieth century and demonstrates how literature could push back against the politics of silence promoted by the state. This is postcolonial scholarship at its best—theoretically sophisticated and historically grounded.” -- Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University“Jill Jarvis's comparative study of Algeria, which engages with Arabic materials alongside the French, is very impressive. Meeting a significant demand in the field, Decolonizing Memory is a strong addition to Francophone studies, memory studies, and postcolonial studies and it will appeal to all those interested in the relationship between justice and the literary.” -- Ranjana Khanna, author of * Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present *“By engaging with literary works that span decades and continents, Decolonizing Memory is a useful text to think with across disciplinary lines. . . . By arguing that literature occupies a special place in the analysis of colonialism, Jarvis entreats scholars in other fields to take lit­erature seriously.” -- Meghan Tinsley * French History *“Decolonizing Memory is a promising contribution to the flourishing research being done in the field of Memory Studies, that is challenging the Western and in this case the French politics of testimony from the postcolonial point of view.” -- T. S. Kavitha * Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy *“Jarvis offers her readers a compelling theoretic work. . . . Her text marks a significant contribution to Francophone literary theory at a time when Algeria is experiencing a new chapter in its history, with both its citizens and its writers continuing the fight for justice as they hope for a brighter future.” -- Mildred Mortimer * International Journal of Middle East Studies *"Decolonizing Memory is a welcome contribution to the emerging field of postcolonial memory studies. A theoretically sophisticated intervention in debates about the representation of violence and collective trauma in colonial and postcolonial settings. . . ." -- Olivia C. Harrison * MLQ *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. The Future of Memory 1 1. Remnants of Muslims 27 2. Untranslatable Justice 63 3. Mourning Revolt 98 4. Open Elegy 141 Conclusion. Prisons without Walls 168 Notes 197 Bibliography 255 Index 267

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Book SynopsisA rare colour-enhanced example of Oriental Romanticism and psychotropic drug use in late 19th century American fiction.

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Book SynopsisAgnes Grey was one of a trio of novels that defined the 'governess novel' in 1847 and 1848. Alongside Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair, Agnes Grey may be the most radical of the three. Agnes Grey is the younger daughter of a clergyman and his wife of modest means, cherished but also infantilized. When her father's mercantile investment goes disastrously wrong, Agnes decides to contribute to the family's financial rebuilding by working as a governess, despite her mother and sister's misgivings about her fitness for such work. Her first position is indeed trying, as the parents and children are uncouth and even cruel. Her second position is slightly more congenial, but she is still manipulated and ignored. Still, Agnes perseveres and begins to build relationships outside the family, most importantly, with a kind, empathetic young curate. As life brings more trials to Agnes and her family, we watch her persevere in her steady path of hope and determination.This Broadview Edition provides extensive historical documents on the novel's reception, the role of the governess in Victorian England, and contemporary debates about the treatment of non-human animals.Trade Review“This engaging new edition makes a strong case for the radical nature of Anne Brontë’s novel and for its place as a seminal feminist work. It contains a wealth of important material for students, especially texts from the Victorian period about the plight of governesses and the issues of animal cruelty and animal rights—key historical contexts for the novel. The introduction provides an excellent grounding in the period and in the place of Anne Brontë’s novel in relation to its era and to the books of her more-famous sisters. It’s a timely and necessary contribution to Brontë studies.” — Deborah Lutz, University of Louisville“Anne Brontë has been the frequent recipient of barbed faint praise that inevitably positions her as ‘the other’ Brontë sister. But in this well-conceived and reader-friendly new edition of Anne’s debut 1847 novel, Agnes Grey, Robin Inboden lays out a persuasive case for why we should care about Brontë’s writing for its own sake. Even if we may not quite join late-Victorian Irish novelist George Moore in his startling judgment that Agnes Grey is ‘the most perfect prose narrative in English literature,’ Inboden’s resourcefully intelligent editorial work allows us to appreciate this novel for the rich and fascinating text that it is. Especially welcome here is the extensive appendix containing a range of materials contextualizing the novel in relation to the early-Victorian animal welfare movement.” — Ivan Kreilkamp, Indiana University“Broadview’s edition of Agnes Grey is a welcome contribution to the rehabilitation of Anne Brontë’s reputation and her place in Victorian literary and cultural studies.… Broadview’s editions are wonderfully affordable and feature a wealth of secondary sources, reception history, and criticism in their apparatus, making them extremely valuable and relevant for teaching and research. Robin Inboden’s new edition provides teachers, students, and literary scholars with a most welcome resource, well-timed to coincide with Anne’s bicentenary year.” — Deborah A. Logan, Victorians: A Journal of Culture and LiteratureTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Anne Brontë: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Text Agnes Grey Appendix A: Other Writings by and about Anne Brontë 1. From Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey (letter, 15 April 1839) 2. From Anne Brontë, Diary Paper (30 July 1841) 3. From Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey (letter, 7 August 1841) 4. From Anne Brontë, Diary Paper (31 July 1845) 5. Anne Brontë, “The Bluebell” (22 August 1840) 6. Acton Bell [Anne Brontë], “Appeal” (28 August 1840) 7. Anne Brontë, “Lines Written at [Thorp] Green” (19 August 1841) 8. Acton Bell [Anne Brontë], “Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day” (30 December 1842) 9. From Ellen Nussey, “Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë” (1871) 10. From Currer Bell [Charlotte Brontë], “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell” (1850) Appendix B: Contemporary and Early Reviews and Responses 1. From Spectator (18 December 1847) 2. From Henry F. Chorley, Athenaeum (25 December 1847) 3. From Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper (15 January 1848) 4. From New Monthly Magazine (January 1848) 5. From Atlas (22 January 1848) 6. From Portland [Maine] Transcript (5 January 1850) 7. From Graham’s Magazine [Philadelphia] (1 February 1850) 8. From W.C. Roscoe, “Miss Brontë,” National Review (July 1857) 9. From Mary Augusta Ward, “Introduction,” The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1900) 10. From George Moore, Conversations in Ebury Street (1910) Appendix C: The Governess in Society 1. Maria Smith Abdy, “A Governess Wanted,” Metropolitan Magazine (May 1836) 2. From George Stephen, The Guide to Service: The Governess (1844) 3. From “Hints on the Modern Governess System,” Fraser’s Magazine (November 1844) Appendix D: Humane Treatment of Animals 1. From Isaac Watts, A Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth (1725) 2. From Thomas Erskine, Speech … On … Preventing … Cruelty to Animals (1809) 3. From “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” Times (17 June 1824) 4. From Sarah Burdett, The Rights of Animals (1839) 5. From Charlotte Elizabeth [Tonna], Kindness to Animals (c. 1845) 6. C.S., “The Lost Nestlings,” A Mother’s Lessons in Kindness to Animals (c. 1862) Works Cited and Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn Stolen Life—the second volume in his landmark trilogy consent not to be a single being—Fred Moten engages with the work of thinkers ranging from Kant to Saidiya Hartman, undertaking an expansive exploration of blackness as it relates to black life and the collective refusal of social death.Trade Review"It's this spirit of the collective effort of study and exchange and resonance, the effort to keep the channels open and keep listening, that has made Moten (or, maybe, 'Moten/s') such a celebrated thinker. At the end of sentences like these, you want to say something like Amen." -- Jess Row * Bookforum *"At a time when both theory and criticism are frequently and convincingly attacked as exhausted forms, Moten’s trilogy has reinvented both. . . . In its mixture of theoretical complexity and disarming directness, Moten’s beautifully written trilogy offers the sheer pleasure of art." -- Lidija Haas * Vulture *"My favorite book(s) of 2018 are the three volumes of Fred Moten’s consent not to be a single being, individually titled Black and Blur, Stolen Life, and The Universal Machine. In this collection of essays stretching back fifteen years, Moten challenges the reader to imagine a radically interconnected aesthetic and political sphere that stretches from Glenn Gould to Fanon to Kant to Theaster Gates, sometimes in the space of a single sentence. This trilogy is one of the great intellectual adventures of our era." -- Jess Row * Bookforum *"2018 must go down for me as the year of Fred Moten’s trilogy: Black and Blur, Stolen Life, and The Universal Machine. You could say they’re essays about art, philosophy, blackness, and the refusal of social death, but I think of them more as a fractal universe forever inviting immersion and exploration, a living force now inhabiting my bookshelf." -- Maggie Nelson * Bookforum *"consent not to be a single being, titled after a phrase of Édouard Glissant’s, ranges across an impressive number of disciplines: black studies, performance studies, aesthetics, phenomenology, ontology, ethnomusicology, jazz history, comparative literature, critical theory, etc. Without announcing its intervention as interdisciplinary–Moten deftly renders discipline beside the point. . . . Taken together, the series amounts to a powerful argument for black study—as an analytic, an impetus, a mode, the collective shout from a radical vista, whose bellow requires nothing less than 'passionate response' (Moten 2003)." -- Mimi Howard * boundary 2 *"Whether reading his poetry or theory, listening to his lectures, Moten will change how you think about almost everything." -- Melissa Chadburn * Literary Hub *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Preface ix 1. Knowledge of Freedom 1 2. Gestural Critique of Judgment 96 3. Uplift and Criminality 115 4. The New International of Decent Feelings 140 5. Rilya Wilson, Precious Doe, Buried Angel 152 6. Black Op 155 7. The Touring Machine (Flesh Thought Inside Out) 161 8. Seeing Things 183 9. Air Shaft, Rent Party 188 10. Notes on Passage 191 11. Here, There, and Everywhere 213 12. Anassignment Letters 227 13. The Animaternalizing Call 237 14. Erotics of Fugitivity 241 Notes 269 Works Cited 297 Index 309

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Book SynopsisFind everything you need to achieve your full potential with York Notes for GCSE Study Guides, now updated for GCSE (9-1).

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Book SynopsisThe Case of Sherlock Holmes uncovers what is untold, partly told, wrongly told, or deliberately concealed in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes saga.

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Book SynopsisThe first critical study of writing without language In recent years, asemic writing—writing without language—has exploded in popularity, with anthologies, a large-scale art exhibition, and flourishing interest on sites like tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. Yet this burgeoning, fascinating field has never received a dedicated critical study. Asemic fills that gap, proposing new ways of rethinking the nature of writing.Pioneered in the work of creators such as Henri Michaux, Roland Barthes, and Cy Twombly, asemic writing consolidated as a movement in the 1990s. Author Peter Schwenger first covers these “asemic ancestors” before moving to current practitioners such as Michael Jacobson, Rosaire Appel, and Christopher Skinner, exploring how asemic writing has evolved and gained importance in the contemporary era.Asemic includes intriguing revelations about the relation of asemic writing to Chinese characters, the possibility of asemic writing in nature, and explanations of how we can read without language. Written in a lively style, this book will engage scholars of contemporary art and literary theory, as well as anyone interested in what writing was and what it is now in the process of becoming.Trade Review"How does the noncommunicative communicate? This is the seemingly innocent question Peter Schwenger unpacks. At once storehouse and treatise, Asemic has the clarity of a dictionary entry, its sagacity delivered with deceptive ease, revealing a domain vaster than anyone would have thought: a Copernican marvel."—Jed Rasula, author of History of a Shiver: The Sublime Impudence of Modernism"Asemic is a long-overdue study of poetries that occupy liminal spaces between art, like Twombly's paintings, and recognizable words, like Michaux's poetry. Peter Schwenger offers an extended theory and an introductory survey of contemporary asemic writing by Michael Jacobson, Rosaire Appel, Christopher Skinner, and others. From this book one can learn to read and, by extension, teach a-semiological texts."—Craig Saper, co-editor of Readies for Bob Brown's Machine"This is the first full-length exploration of the history and meaning of asemic writing. Important figures such as Michaux, Twombly, Barthes, Jim Leftwich, and Rosaire Appel are included, as well as examples from Chinese culture. Well-chosen illustrations accompany Peter Schwenger's insightful text. This book is a solid first map of a territory previously unknown to academic study."—Tim Gaze, publisher of Asemic magazine"What emerges in Schwenger’s book is an aesthetics of language, and of reading in par- ticular, that draws attention to how asemic writing lets us dive into the untapped possibilities of incomprehension."—Literary Review of Canada"The Art of Writing,Peter Schwenger’s engaging and groundbreaking book focused on the asemic as a cultural phenomenon and ratified genre of modern and contemporary art."—Art in America"Peter Schwenger offers a history of the practice, linking modern era pioneers like Barthes, Henri Michaux, and Cy Twombly to lesser-known contemporary practitioners Michael Jacobson, Rosaire Appel, and Christopher Skinner. Pulling examples of asemic writing from a diversity of fields—across contemporary art, comics, notation, and even nature—he demonstrates poet Michael Jacobson’s fitting definition of his field: “Without words, asemic writing is able to relate to all words, colors, and even music, irrespective of the author or the reader’s original language.”"—The Brooklyn Rail"Peter Schwenger offers the first book-length academic study of this vibrant field; it is an important and valuable start to the formal study of asemic writing."—Rain Taxi Review of Books"Vital and fateful . . . engagingly international."—CAA Reviews"In a clear and in-depth way, Asemic: the Art of Writing can be seen as a first official notation of that dance, excelling in the ability to bring to a wider audience the intricacies of a subject often seen as a niche of encrypted doodles legible only to a few."—Electric Book Review

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy.”—David Skeel, Wall Street JournalSelected as the 2020 Yale Book Award for Eastern Massachusetts“This bold anthology provides readers with a wealth of reflection and insight on the epiphanies, large and small, that help give meaning to our lives. These poems remind us that joy is deep, and necessary.”—Kathleen Norris, author of Acedia & Me and Journey: New & Selected Poems“The force of this wonderful collection (and the wonderful introductory essay) is the recognition that joy cannot be argued away. In the centre of our human nightmares something opens and flowers, completely unreasonably, completely undeniably. That is what is celebrated here.”—Rowan Williams, theologian and poet (Cambridge)“Joy is an indispensable collection that will buoy up the darkest reader. Truly, Christian Wiman is a genius to have ranged so far (and deep!) to gather in one spot so many unforgettable poems to convince this glum bunny there’s more light than dark in our wiggly world.”—Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club, Lit, and Sinners Welcome“This is an original, necessary, and illuminating book: it shines a light on an often overlooked aspect of poetry, and on Wiman’s own work, too.”—Paul Elie, author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Reinventing Bach

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Book SynopsisSusan Fraiman reformulates domesticity, freeing it from associations with conformity and sentimentality. Ranging across periods and genres, and diversifying the archive of domestic depictions, Extreme Domesticity stresses the heterogeneity of households and probes the multiplicity of domestic meanings.Trade ReviewIn Extreme Domesticity, Susan Fraiman continues to perform the crucial task of challenging—in lucid, fervent prose—the "habitual, unthinking" conflations and repudiations that keep women, or the feminized, at the bottom of hierarchies of value. Using a refreshing range of sources, which includes queers, immigrants, and the homeless alongside the more usual "domestic" suspects, Fraiman sets forth a rethinking of domesticity's nature, purpose, location, and creators. It's a timely rethinking that we truly need now. -- Maggie Nelson, author of The ArgonautsExtreme Domesticity brilliantly explores the homemaking practices that provide sustenance and shelter for the fierce and fragile lives of gender rebels and queer pioneers (even during times of homelessness). It is a lesson in how people find the tools for life-making amongst the ordinary and disregarded materials that surround them; and it is a dazzling excursion across dissident domesticities -- Ben Highmore, author of Ordinary Lives: Studies in the EverydayThis spirited book rescues housekeeping from its presumed ideological trappings by bringing a host of marginalized subjects back into view. Susan Fraiman demonstrates domesticity's strong creative pull for many working-class, immigrant, queer, divorced, or homeless subjects. Carefully probing a diverse array of homemaking experiences, along with the distinct challenges, comforts, and compensations domestic life can bring, Fraiman honors the rich meanings of home for those too often denied it. A surprising and welcome book. -- Diana Fuss, author of The Sense of an Interior: Four Rooms and the Writers that Shaped ThemExtreme Domesticity is a startlingly original work that not only offers a contemporary updating of feminist studies on domestic and sentimental fiction, but also establishes provocative new frameworks for understanding modern gender formations. A brilliant and important book! -- Thomas Foster, author of Transformations of Domesticity in Modern Women's Writing: Homelessness at HomeAn imaginative and eye-opening reconceptualization of the idea of home. . . . Fraiman’s close readings of detailed descriptions of housework give ordinary daily operations both dignity and value. * Contemporary Women’s Writing *While amply acknowledging domesticity’s historic constraints on women . . . Fraiman advocates for the empowering potential of homemaking for those who struggle to attain a home or who find it healing after trauma. * Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature *A fresh view of domesticity . . . that comes out of dispossession and precarity, a domesticity carefully made out of wreckage and loss by those cast away or cast out. * Novel: A Forum on Fiction *Fraiman’s nuanced readings reveal that domesticity can be, and has been, 'reconfigured as a language of female self-sufficiency, ambition, and pleasure.' * 4Columns *Insightful and lively. * Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society *Highly recommended. * Choice *In spirited and welcoming prose, Fraiman makes us rethink the ideological baggage the domestic realm carries. . . . She leaves us contemplating how we—and various others—value, occupy, and adorn both real and imagined dwelling places. * ALH *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Doing Domesticity1. Shelter Writing: Desperate Housekeeping from Crusoe to Queer Eye2. Behind the Curtain: Domestic Industry in Mary Barton3. Domesticity Beyond Sentiment: Edith Wharton, Decoration, and Divorce4. Bad Girls of Good Housekeeping: Dominique Browning and Martha Stewart5. Undocumented Houses: Histories of Dislocation in Immigrant Fiction6. Domesticity in Extremis: Homemaking by the UnshelteredConclusion: Dwelling-in-Traveling, Traveling-in-DwellingNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA timely book for today's world, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations explores how to endure hardship, how to cope with change and how to find something positive out of adversity.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is translated by A. S. L. Farquharson and features an introduction by John Sellars.The Meditations are a set of personal reflections by Marcus Aurelius. He writes about the vicissitudes of his own life and explores how to live wisely and virtuously in an unpredictable world. He was a follower of the Stoic tradition of philosophy, and one of its finest advocates, both in the clarity of his writing and in the uprightness of his life. The aphorisms show how for him, as perhaps for us all, the answer to life lies in keeping a calm and rational mind, and in refusing to be cast down or alarmed by things over which we have no control.Trade ReviewHis meditations can indeed still offer all of us, historians included, worthwhile advice -- Tom Holland * Guardian *For many thinkers of the 19th century – from Darwin to Nietzsche – Marcus was an intellectual hero -- Mary Beard * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisErudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from the much-loved writer Clive James to one of the world’s most cherished poets: Philip Larkin.'This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime' – The TimesClive James was a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by the opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.'A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James' – Financial TimesTrade ReviewFew contemporary critics display the passionate commitment to the idea of poetry, and to the idea of poetry's centrality to civilized life, that James does -- John Banville * New York Review of Books *To read a major critic on a major poet is one of the great pleasures. Clive James’s passion for the work of Philip Larkin, his intense scrutiny which reveals an extraordinary empathy makes Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin an outstanding book. -- Melvyn Bragg * New Statesman, Books of the Year 2019 *One of the most important and influential writers of our time -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *In Somewhere Becoming Rain, Clive James’s collected essays on the poetry of Philip Larkin, the brilliance of James’s analysis, his clear-sighted view of Larkin’s solitude and humanity, and the fragile friendship between the two recorded in the book’s final pages, provide a monument to human connection and isolation together. It’s a perfect example of the “almost instinct” Larkin managed to prove “almost true” (hedging his bets to the end) – that what will survive of us is love. -- Andrew Hunter Murray * Guardian *A collection of witty essays by a great critic about a great poet . . . What will survive of Larkin is the work, and this small book is a joyful immersion in it. This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime * The Times *This slim collection of Clive James’ writings on Philip Larkin demonstrates both a life-long passion for the poet’s work and a deep critical endeavour to rehabilitate his reputation as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James -- Best Books of 2019 * Financial Times *This is a tribute to Larkin’s poems. James is good at reminding us why and how they were powerful, multivalent and memorable . . . He is also unusually observant. His parallels between Larkin and Montale are elucidating * TLS *[James] was what you might call a massive Philip Larkin fan. His specific fandom was feverish and absolute – and also, because he was Clive James, deeply considered and beautifully expressed . . . it’s a privilege to look back at Larkin – all of Larkin – through the prism of [James’s] appreciation * Atlantic *Perceptive . . . This volume also allows the reader to delight in James’s own prose, which surely rivals Larkin’s in the wit and insight stakes * The Crack *The late Clive James had much in common with Philip Larkin . . . In verse and prose, both blazed with wit and wrote scores of memorable lines . . . although their work was laced with sadness, few writers since have written with such beauty and gratitude about the world * Review 31 *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“A book that seems long overdue. As the former longtime libraries curator for the National Trust, Purcell is singularly qualified to discuss these troves.”—Adrian Higgins, Washington Post“Magisterial (and beautifully illustrated)”—David Jenkins, Tatler“For those who love books and the libraries in which they are stored this book is an essential volume to own.”—Social & Personal"As a whole, this book is a tremendous achievement."—John Goodall, Country Life"beautifully written, cogently argued and lavishly illustrated book"—Jason McElligott, Irish Arts ReviewIncluded in the Irish Independent end of year list for 2017."boundlessly informative"—David Ekserdjian, Evening Standard"Its title is unassuming, but it constitutes, in fact, a significant contribution to the scholarly discipline of book history."—Alexandra Marracini, TLS"the definitive account of the country house library in Britain and Ireland"—Matthew Sanders, Ancient Monuments Society Newsletter"beautifully produced and gorgeously, lavishly illustrated"—Leah Galbraith, Fiction Fan blog"And with 150 magnificent colour plates is it really only £45? Buy it quickly before the publishers notice their mistake."—Stephen Halliday, Times Higher Education Supplement“This is a ground-breaking book […] a cracking good read.” – John Martin Robinson, Literary Review. “[An] all-encompassing study” —Jeremy Musson, Art Newspaper“This book is the first major work to redress this imbalance and to put the contents of the library into its proper context” —Robert L. Betteridge, EBS“Beautifully illustrated with striking new photography, together with historical paintings and engravings, the book provides an outstanding overview of this important and strangely neglected subject.”—James W.P. Campbell, The Burlington Magazine

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Book SynopsisTo love is to act Aimer, c'est agir. These words, which Victor Hugo wrote three days before he died, epitomize his life's philosophy. His love of freedom, democracy, and all peopleespecially the poor and wretcheddrove him not only to write his epic Les Misérables but also to follow his conscience. We have much to learn from Hugo, who battled for justice, lobbied against slavery and the death penalty, and fought for the rights of women and children. In a series of essays that interweave Hugo's life with Les Misérables and point to the novel's contemporary relevance, To Love Is to Act explores how Hugo reveals his guiding principles for life, including his belief in the redemptive power of love and forgiveness. Enriching the book are insights from artists who captured the novel's heart in the famed musical, Les Mis creators Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, producer of the musical Les MisérablesCameron Mackintosh, film director Tom Hooper, and award-winning actors who have portrayed Jean Valjean: Colm Wilkinson and Hugh Jackman.

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Book SynopsisToby Widdicombe is Professor of English at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA. His previous books include Simply Shakespeare (2001).Trade ReviewThe book examines a range of themes and content across Tolkien’s work and life and brings them together in a tidy package. Widdicombe has done a fine job across the book as a whole. * Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) *J.R.R. Tolkien: A Guide for the Perplexed helps dispel the confusion many students feel when first studying Tolkien’s secondary world. This engagingly written and insightful volume will prove a useful resource in classrooms. -- William Fliss, Tolkien Archivist, Marquette University, United StatesTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: Tolkien’s Life and Art Chapter 2: Tolkien’s Legendarium Chapter 3: Tolkien and His Languages Chapter 4: Tolkien on Time Chapter 5: Tolkien on Peoples Chapter 6: Tolkien’s Themes Afterword Appendix A: Tolkien’s Sources Appendix B: Films of the Legendarium Appendix C: The Scholarship on Tolkien References

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Book SynopsisThe Red Wheel is Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's multivolume epic work about the Russian Revolution. He spent decades writing about just four of the most important periods, or “nodes"". This is the first time that the monumental March 1917–the third node–has been translated into English.Trade Review"This third installment of The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's narrative of the events leading to the Russian Revolution, is remarkable in its complexity. The novel presents a polyphonic kaleidoscope of people, places, and events, some real, some fictitious." —Society Journal"In The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn produced a masterpiece, and proved himself a worthy companion of Dostoevsky and rival of Tolstoy." —Law and Liberty"Marian Schwartz's new translation is the first time the expansive and resonant March 1917: Node III: Book 2 has been published in English. . . . Solzhenitsyn captures the chaos of the time, when a centuries-old order fell and the factions that would fight to replace it were still forming." —Foreword Reviews"Here we see how a millennium-old nation ruled by a monarchy that had lasted a good three centuries fell apart in three days. Book 2 of March 1917 powerfully reveals how a decent if flawed political and social order collapsed 'with incredible alacrity,' as Solzhenitsyn writes elsewhere." —The New Criterion"Of all his novels so far, this one feels the most immediate, the most current. The freneticism, violence, confusion, and disorientation of Russians in Petrograd from March 15 through March 17 of 1917 can also be seen in minds and actions of Chinese in Hong Kong, right now. . . . No one surpasses Solzhenitsyn in conveying a sense of what it feels to live at and near the center of this kind of vortex." —Law and Liberty"March 1917 is haunted by 'what-ifs.' Indeed, Solzhenitsyn suggests, the revolution was less likely than other outcomes, and all retrospective attempts to describe it as inevitable are fallacious. In his view, events might just as easily followed a different course. As we contemplate what transpired, we regret the Russia that might have been." —The American Scholar"March 1917, Book 2, covers the three days of the February Revolution, which is shown as an immense national unraveling that corrupted public morality and destroyed social cohesion, often with sadistic brutality, and that inevitably led to the Bolshevik takeover eight months later. This historical catastrophe, Solzhenitsyn believed, was due to the fecklessness of the imperial elites all the way up to the terminally mediocre Czar Nicholas II; the revolutionaries’ blind lust for destruction; and the estrangement of the bulk of the people from God and country." —National Review"[B]ook 2 of the March 1917 node . . . dramatizes the tumultuous events of the March Revolution—a workers’ strike in Petrograd; abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and house arrest of the Romanov family; establishment of a provisional government to rule over Russia. Although The Red Wheel is fiction, Solzhenitsyn prided himself on the historical accuracy of his work. He spent ten years writing the March 1917 node, adding psychological depth, descriptive details, and, occasionally, his own views to bring well-known personalities and events to life." —Choice

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Book SynopsisThis is the first systematic critique of Edward Said's influential work, Orientalism, a book that for almost three decades has received wide acclaim, voluminous commentary, and translation into more than fifteen languages. Said's main thesis was that the Western image of the East was heavily biased by colonialist attitudes, racism, and more than two centuries of political exploitation. Although Said's critique was controversial, the impact of his ideas has been a pervasive rethinking of Western perceptions of Eastern cultures, plus a tendency to view all scholarship in Oriental Studies as tainted by considerations of power and prejudice. In this thorough reconsideration of Said's famous work, Ibn Warraq argues that Said's case against the West is seriously flawed. Warraq accuses Said of not only willfully misinterpreting the work of many scholars, but also of systematically misrepresenting Western civilization as a whole. With example after example, he shows that ever since the Greeks Western civilization has always had a strand in its very makeup that has accepted non-Westerners with open arms and has ever been open to foreign ideas. The author also criticizes Said for inadequate methodology, incoherent arguments, and a faulty historical understanding. He points out, not only Said's tendentious interpretations, but historical howlers that would make a sophomore blush. Warraq further looks at the destructive influence of Said's study on the history of Western painting, especially of the 19th century, and shows how, once again, the epigones of Said have succeeded in relegating thousands of first-class paintings to the lofts and storage rooms of major museums. An extended appendix reconsiders the value of 18th- and 19th-century Orientalist scholars and artists, whose work fell into disrepute as a result of Said's work.Trade Review"...the immensely erudite and clear-minded Ibn Warraq...refutes every point that Said made in his most famous book, Orientalism...Defending the West is...a book of great learning...No one, except cultural historians, need ever read, let alone refute, Said again." -- National Review, April 7, 2008 vol. LX, No. 6 "[This] is, on the whole, a book of great learning, full of information that to most readers will be recondite, but that is nonetheless entirely relevant to its overall theme...If I were a teacher of the humanities, however I would give my students Said's Orientatalism to read, then Warraq's Defending the West, to demonstrate the difference between militant malice and erudition." --Book Review Digest, Aug. 1, 2008 "Ibn Warraq's critique of Said's thought and work is thorough and convincing, indeed devastating to anyone depending on Saidism. It should force the Saidists to acknowledge the sophistry of their false prophet." --Middle Eastern Quarterly, Winter 2009 "free minds owe Ibn Warraq their genuine gratitude." -- Free Inquiry, Vol. 29, No. 3, April/May 2009Table of ContentsPreface; Three Tutelary Guiding Lights; Classical Antiquity; Early Christianity to the Seventeenth Century; Indian Orientalists; Western Archaeologists; Empire and Curzon; Edward Said and His Methodology; The Pathological Niceness of Liberals, Antimonies, Paradoxes, and Western Values; Orientals as Collectors; Painting and Sculpture; Occidental Influence on Eastern Art; Nineteenth-Century Orientalist Art; Painters as Writers; John Frederick Lewis; Hegel and the Meaning, Significance, and Influence of Dutch Genre Painting; Charles Cordier: Orientalist Sculptor; Religion, Piety, and Portraits; Oriental and African American Orientalists; Orientalism and Music; Literature and Orientalism.

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Book SynopsisThe definitive translation of the seminal treatise on the code of the samurai. Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of over 1,300 short texts written by eighteenth-century samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo. These texts illuminate the classic Japanese concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die. Acclaimed translator William Scott Wilson has selected and translated here three hundred of those texts to create an accessible distillation of this guide, making it one of the most thorough and astonishing windows into the captivating world of the samurai available. This edition includes an introduction that delves into the Zen concept of muga, or ?death? of the ego, giving an in-depth historical and philosophical background for the more metaphorical reading of Hagakure that is based on Tsunetomo?s reference to bushido as ?the Way of death.? Through this lens, which has held a morbid fascination for readers through the years, the classic takes on a fresh and nuanced appeal. This book was previously published under the title Hagakure. This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series.The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts.The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman.The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compactformat that is collectible, reader-friendly, andapplicable to everyday life.

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