ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisTea has a rich and well-documented past. The beverage originated in Asia long before making its way to seventeenth-century London, where it became an exotic, highly sought-after commodity. Over the subsequent two centuries, tea’s powerful psychoactive properties seduced British society, becoming popular across the nation from castle to cottage. Now the world’s most popular drink, tea was one of the first truly global products to find a mass market, with tea drinking now stereotypically associated with British identity. The delicate flavour profile and hot preparation of tea inspired poets, artists and satirists. Tea was embroiled in controversy, from the gossip of the domestic tea table to the civil disorder occasioned by smuggling and the political scandal of the Boston Tea Party. Based on extensive original research, and now available in paperback, Empire of Tea provides a rich cultural history that explores how the British `way of tea’ became the norm across the Anglophone world.Trade Review`A stimulating and attractively illustrated history’ – History Today; `For those tempted to begin the tale of British tea-drinking with the Opium Wars, or with the establishment of Indian tea plantations, this book offers a richly textured history of the “empire” that preceded, and long outgrew, those events.’ – Times Literary Supplement

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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 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 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 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 SynopsisThis is the first full biography of Charles Williams (1886-1945), an extraordinary and controversial figure who was a central member of the Inklingsthe group of Oxford writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Charles Williamsnovelist, poet, theologian, magician and guruwas the strangest, most multi-talented, and most controversial member of the group. He was a pioneering fantasy writer, who still has a cult following. C.S. Lewis thought his poems on King Arthur and the Holy Grail were among the best poetry of the twentieth century for ''the soaring and gorgeous novelty of their technique, and their profound wisdom''. But Williams was full of contradictions. An influential theologian, Williams was also deeply involved in the occult, experimenting extensively with magic, practising erotically-tinged rituals, and acquiring a following of devoted disciples. Membership of the Inklings, whom he joined at the outbreak of the Second World War, was only the final phase in a remarkabTrade ReviewIn Charles Williams: The Third Inkling, Grevel Lindop has written a page-turner. He proves himself a master of the biographical narrative. He knows how to end chapters and sections of chapters with cliffhangers. He liberally employs the ironic slant, and he has an eye for visuals. Lindop's preface, a model of balanced prose, sets the volume's tone. * Philip Irving Mitchell, Religion and the Arts *exemplary, and very thought-provoking * Philip Hensher, Books of the Year 2015, The Spectator *This solid and scholarly biography explores the byways of literary history with much verve and energy ... Lindop has provided a fascinating account * Philip Hensher, Spectator *Lindop has added significantly to our knowledge of the Third Man in the Inklings and deftly filled in some major blank areas in our standard map of literary modernism. * Kevin Jackson, Literary Review *excellent biography * London Review of Books *[a] fine, thoroughly researched book. * Tablet *thorough biography * Journey *fascinating reading ... meticulous study ... This biography puts Williams back in the picture * Andy Ffrench, Oxford Times *a fascinating, and even astonishing biography * Theology *Grevel Lindop's biography of Charles Williams is, in almost every way, all that one would want in such a study: comprehensive, judicious, sympathetic, but also properly surprised by its subject, for good and ill. * Rowan Williams, Journal of Inkling Studies *His prose style has benefitted from long years of listening to the musicality of language: his sentences are clear and competent, his narrative skill evident, his storytelling ability considerable. It is this last quality, in combination with his meticulous scholarship, that makes The Third Inkling masterful. * Sørina Higgins, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's exhaustive research and clarity of presentation make this an indispensable volume for anyone who wishes to understand Williams and come to terms with his writing and influence. No future study of Williams will be adequate without drawing on this study; Lindop deserves much praise for bringing to completion such a massive endeavour. * Holly Ordway, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's narrative, packed with incident and parcelled into satisfying arcs, is exemplary * Oxford Today *Grevel Lindop has written a ground-breaking life, at once scholarly and readable, which reveals Williams in all his fascination ... Lindop has done a real service in showing not only why his writing had such an appeal for Tolkein, Lewis, and Eliot, but how it can still jolt us into deeper reflection today. * The Rt Revd Lord Harries, Church Times *the definitive biography ... .a brilliant introduction to a brilliant, yet very troubled and troubling, man * Evangelical Times *an authoritative, and extremely readable, biography. * Sydney Morning Herald *The Third Inkling is a very readable book which wears its meticulous research lightly - and that's no mean feat. It raises some important and troubling questions. * A Writer's Life *well-written biography * Notre Dame magazine *wonderful biography * Network Review *As a work of biographical scholarship, then, The Third Inkling leaves nothing to be desired. * The Oddest Inkling *a thorough, profound, and sympathetic study * A.N Wilson, First Things *an excellent biography, taking its place as the premier resource on Williams * The Notion Club Papers *Table of ContentsPrologue Chapter One: From Holloway to Silvania Chapter Two: 'The Most Talkative Young Man' Chapter Three: The Silver Stair Chapter Four: 'Marriages are Made in Heaven' Chapter Five: The Initiate Chapter Six: 'The Satanist' Chapter Seven: 'Why the Devil Does Anyone Ever Get Married?' Chapter Eight: Romantic Theology Chapter Nine: Phyllis Chapter Ten: 'I Can't Do Without You - I Can't' Chapter Eleven: Substitution Chapter Twelve: Novels and the Poetic Mind Chapter Thirteen: 'They Saved My Life by Three Hours' Chapter Fourteen: 'I'm Becoming a Myth to Myself' Chapter Fifteen: 'The Staff Work of the Omnipotence' Chapter Sixteen: The Order of the Co-Inherence Chapter Seventeen: 'A Kind of Parody of London' Chapter Eighteen: 'Bitter Is the Brew of Exchange' Chapter Nineteen: A Pioneer for the Young Poets Chapter Twenty: 'It Is Not Yet Too Late' Chapter Twenty-One: 'Into the Province of Death' Epilogue

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Book SynopsisAlongside Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron possesses a star-quality unlike other classic British authors. His life as poet, philanderer, homosexual, and freedom fighter is legendary, and this new selection from his powerful letters and journals tells the story from the inside, in Byron''s own racy and passionate style. Though Byron is chiefly known as a poet, his letters and journals are one of the glories of English prose literature, and one of the greatest British acts of autobiography, alongside Pepys'' Diary and Boswell''s Journal. This new selection, taken from the authoritative and unbowdlerized edition prepared by Leslie Marchand in the 1970s, not only provides the cream of his informal prose; it amounts to a biography in Byron''s own words. No other English writer lived so remarkable an existence, from rented rooms in Aberdeen to a Nottinghamshire peerage, from European fame to English infamy, and notorious Italian exile to a glorious death in the GrTrade Review... a much-needed new collection of Byron's incomparable letters and journals... Lansdown is... a generous and sensitive appreciator of Byron's literary genius The volume as a whole presents an appropriately engrossing, moving, hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking sampler of the coruscating brilliance of one of the greater letter writers in the English language. * Jeffery Vail, Keats-Shelley Journal *This selection, which reads like a biography in his own words, is a dramatic and volatile portrait which takes the reader from England to Greece, from fame to infamy. * Robert Tanitch, Mature Times *It is time to talk about Lord Byron again. It is also time to read him again, and I recommend Lansdowns Selected Letters and Journals as an excellent place to start. * Amit Majmuder, Able Muse *Richard Landsdown's book is a selection from Marchand's 12, with copious biographical notes. It is hard to reduce twelve to one, but Lansdown has done well, giving readers a lively sense of "this singularly magnetic individual". * Denis Donoghue, Irish Times *Lansdown does a valiant job of representing the thought processes and publishing dilemmas behind the major works * Corin Throsby, Times Literary Supplement *... it is well-judged, gives good coverage to different periods of Byron's life, and feels substantially representative ... * Keats-Shelley Review *informed, sympathetic and well-researched... deeply interesting and well-chosen selection * Tablet, Robert Carver *This new selection of Byron's proseis arranged chronologically and linked by so much informed, sympathetic and well-researched explanatory material that it amounts to a sort of biography. * The Tablet *This is a deeply interesting and well-chosen selection, unusually clearly printed on the highest-quality pure, white, thick paper, with superb binding: it resembles more a quality production from a private press than a trade publication, and it will certainly last several lifetimes. * The Tablet *splendid volume * Open Letters Monthly *The 500-odd footnoted pages Lansdown has selected are aimed not at scholars and students but at intelligent readers of literary prose. * Independent *This is Byron in the raw and can only add to his legend * Northern Echo *when you line Bryon's letters up like this, one after the other, you can't help but notice the growth of something like art...his prose is extraordinary * Sunday Telegraph, Benjamin Markovitz *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text and Short Titles A Biographical Bibliography 1: Childhood, Boyhood, Youth: January 1788-June 1809 2: The Grand Tour: June 1809-July 1811 3: Childe Harold and Caroline Lamb: July 1811-June 1813 4: The Giaour and Augusta Leigh: June 1813-July 1814 5: Marriage and Separation: August 1814-April 1816 6: Exile: April-November 1816 7: Venice and Rome: November 1816-June 1818 8: Don Juan and Teresa Guiccioli: July 1818-December 1819 9: Ravenna: December 1819-October 1821 10: Pisa: October 1821-September 1822 11: Genoa: October 1822-July 1823 12: Greece: August 1823-April 1824 Afterword Index

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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 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 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 SynopsisNiccolò Machiavelli taught that political leaders must be prepared to do evil so that good may come of it, and his name has been a byword ever since for duplicity and immorality. Is his sinister reputation deserved? In answering this question Quentin Skinner traces the course of Machiavelli''s adult life, from his time as Second Chancellor of the Florentine republic, during which he met with kings, the pope, and the Holy Roman Emperor; to the fall of the republic in 1512; to his death in 1527. It was after the fall of the Republic that Machiavelli composed his main political works: The Prince, the Discourses, and The History of Florence. In this second edition of his Very Short Introduction Skinner includes new material on The Prince, showing how Machiavelli developed his neo-classical political theory, through engaging in continual dialogue with the ancient Roman moralists and historians, especially Cicero and Livy. The aim of political leaders, Machiavelli argues, should be to act virtuously so far as possible, but to stand ready ''to be not good'' when this course of action is dictated by necessity. Exploring the pivotal concept of princely virtù to be found in classical and Renaissance humanist texts, Skinner brings new light to Machiavelli''s philosophy of a willingness to do whatever may be necessary - whether moral or otherwise -to maintain a position of power. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewQuentin Skinner's Machiavelli: A short introduction, published nearly forty years ago and now issued in a new edition, remains a frontrunner in the field. [...] The excellence of Skinner's book lies chiefly in its cool treatment of Machiavelli in his immediate context including his encounters with princes, Florence's political tergiversations, Italy being overrun by foreign armies, and his family background, education and readings in the classics. Skinner's aim was "to serve as a recording angel, not a hanging judge", and he therefore sought to avoid the "defeasible standards of the present as a means of praising or blaming the past". * Laura Martines, The Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: The Diplomat 2: The Adviser to Princes 3: The Theorist of Liberty 4: The Historian of Florence Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisAn original collection of work by the great Serbian poet of the twentieth century.Vasko Popa is widely recognized as one of the great poets of the twentieth century, a riddling fabulist, whose work, taking its bearings from the songs and folklore of his native his Serbia and from surrealism, has a dark gnomic fatalistic humor and pathos that are like nothing else. Charles Simic, a master of contemporary American poetry, has been translating Popa’s work for more than a quarter century. This revised and greatly expanded edition of Simic’s Popa is a revelation.

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Book SynopsisToday many people take reading for granted, but we remain some way off from attaining literacy for the global human population. And whilst we think we know what reading is, it remains in many ways a mysterious process, or set of processes. The effects of reading are myriad: it can be informative, distracting, moving, erotically arousing, politically motivating, spiritual, and much, much more. At different times and in different places reading means different things. In this Very Short Introduction Belinda Jack explores the fascinating history of literacy, and the opportunities reading opens. For much of human history reading was the preserve of the elite, and most reading meant being read to. Innovations in printing, paper-making, and transport, combined with the rise of public education from the late eighteenth century on, brought a dramatic rise in literacy in many parts of the world. Established links between a nation''s levels of literacy and its economy led to the promotion of reading for political ends. But, equally, reading has been associated with subversive ideas, leading to censorship through multiple channels: denying access to education, controlling publishing, destroying libraries, and even the burning of authors and their works. Indeed, the works of Voltaire were so often burned that an enterprising Parisian publisher produced a fire-proof edition, decorated with a phoenix. But, as Jack demonstrates, reading is a collaborative act between an author and a reader, and one which can never be wholly controlled. Telling the story of reading, from the ancient world to digital reading and restrictions today, Belinda Jack explores why it is such an important aspect of our society.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewAn altogether riveting read. * Paradigm Explorer *Table of ContentsList of illustrations 1. What is reading? 2. Ancient worlds 3. Reading manuscripts, reading print 4. Modern reading 5. Forbidden reading 6. Reading and/as interpretation 7. Pluralities Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisTable of Contents Part 1: Introducing Northanger Abbey Part 2: Studying Northanger Abbey Part 3: Characters and Themes Part 4: Structure, Form and Language Part 5: Contexts and Critical Debates Part 6: Grade Booster Essential Study Tools

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisLiterature and a love of the English countryside are natural companions.Walking the Literary Landscape by Ian Hamilton and Diane Roberts brings the two together in a collection of 20 circular routes in the north of England, all between 3 and 9 miles (5 and 15 kilometres) in length. The walks explore the physical settings that inspired some of our greatest literature.Walk in the footsteps of writers like Arthur Ransome, who drew inspiration from the Lake District for his classic children's adventure Swallows and Amazons, or the Brontë sisters whose love of the moors around Haworth echoes through the centuries. See Chatsworth, the Peak District house that thrilled Jane Austen, and tread carefully in Whitby, the Yorkshire seaside town where Bram Stoker set his most famous creation Dracula.Each route introduces you to a landscape familiar to some of our greatest writers, and is accompanied by clear and easy-to-use Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps, straightforward directions, and information on each area's literary links, refreshment stops and local amenities. Everything you need for a great literary walk.Table of ContentsIntroductionAcknowledgementsAbout the walksWalk timesNavigationFootpaths and rights of waySafetyThe Countryside CodeHow to use this bookMaps, descriptions, distancesKm/mile conversion chartArea MapThe Lake District1 Bassenthwaite Lake and Dodd (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)2 Carrock Fell (Charles Dickens)3 Coniston Water and Torver (Arthur Ransome)4 Far Sawrey and Windermere (Beatrix Potter)5 Grasmere and Rydal Water (William Wordsworth)6 Walla Crag and Derwentwater (John Ruskin)The North East, the Moors & the Dales7 Blanchland (W. H. Auden)8 Humbleton Hill and Wooler (William Shakespeare)9 Cleadon Hills and Marsden Rock (Catherine Cookson)10 Whitby (Bram Stoker)11 Around Thirsk (James Herriot)12 Upper Wharfedale and Hubberholme (J. B. Priestley)13 Malham Tarn and Cove (Charles Kingsley)Peak District, South Pennines & Cheshire14 Hurst Green and Stonyhurst College (J. R. R. Tolkien)15 Haworth and the moors (The Brontë sisters)16 Mytholmroyd and the Calder Valley (Ted Hughes)17 Mam Tor and the caverns (Arthur Conan Doyle)18 Around Chatsworth (Jane Austen)19 Knutsford and Tatton Park (Elizabeth Gaskell)20 Daresbury (Lewis Carroll)AppendixAbout the authors

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Book SynopsisIn On Temperaments, Galen of Pergamum sets out his concept of the combination of the four elemental qualities (hot, cold, wet, and dry), which is fundamental to his account of the structure and function of human, animal, and plant bodies. Two related works explore disturbances in this combination and their consequences.

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Book SynopsisJames Macpherson''s "poems of Ossian", first published from 1760 as Fragments of Ancient Poetry, were the literary sensation of the age. Attacked by Samuel Johnson and others as "forgeries", nonetheless the poems enthralled readers around the world, attracting rapturous admiration from such figures as diverse as Goethe, Diderot, Jefferson, Bonaparte and Mendelssohn. This International Companion examines the social, political and philosophical context of the poems, their disputed origins, their impact on world literature, and the various critical afterlives of Macpherson and of "Ossian".

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Book Synopsis[Cappello''s] excellent new book-length essay, Lecture... at once defends the lecture and calls for holistic and creative improvements to the form.—The AtlanticIn twenty-first century America, there is so much that holds or demands our attention without requiring it. Imagine the lecture as a radical opening.Mary Cappello''s Lecture is a song for the forgotten art of the lecture. Brimming with energy and erudition, it is an attempt to restore the lecture''s capacity to wander, question, and excite. Cappello draws on examples from Virginia Woolf to Mary Ruefle, Ralph Waldo Emerson to James Baldwin, blending rigorous cultural criticism with personal history to explore the lecture in its many formsfrom the aphorism to the noteand give new life to knowledge's dramatic form.

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Book Synopsis'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass' are two of the most famous, translated and quoted books in the world. But how did a casual tale told by Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), an eccentric Oxford mathematician, to Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, grow into such a phenomenon? Peter Hunt cuts away the psychological speculation that has grown up around the ‘Alice’ books and traces the sources of their multi-layered in-jokes and political, literary and philosophical satire. He first places the books in the history of children’s literature – how they relate to the other giants of the period, such as Charles Kingsley – and explores the local and personal references that the real Alice would have understood. Equally fascinating is the rich texture of fragments of everything from the ‘sensation’ novel to Darwinian theory – not to mention Dodgson’s personal feelings – that he wove into the books as they developed. Richly illustrated with manuscripts, portraits, Sir John Tenniel’s original line drawings and contemporary photographs, this is a fresh look at two remarkable stories, which takes us on a guided tour from the treacle wells of Victorian Oxford through an astonishing world of politics, philosophy, humour – and nightmare.Trade Review"This attractive and ingeniously illustrated little volume. . .will add much enjoyment to reading and thinking about this remarkable book." * Kimberley Reynolds, Newcastle University *Table of ContentsContentsCharles and Lewis: ‘With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.’Prelude: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ 1 Two Men and Three Girls in a Boat2 Before Alice3 What Alice Knew4 Outside Charles Dodgson 5 Inside Charles Dodgson 6 From Oxford to the WorldNotesBibliographyPicture CreditsIndex

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Book SynopsisWordsworth's lines on Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) contributed to a legend that became better known than Chatterton's work itself. His story is moving: a sensitive, unhappy boy, he fell in love with the medieval world and escaped into it from miserable schooling and the drudgery of apprenticeship. He read and then wrote "medieval" poetry which he passed off as genuine. When the poems he wrote in his own name brought him some success, he went to London to seek his fortune as a writer. After six months' struggle, too proud to admit defeat, starving and alone, he killed himself in his attic room. He was seventeen. There is more to Chatterton than the romantic archetype. His poetry was admired by Keats, Shelley, Coleridge and Wordsworth; as Grevel Lindop says in his introduction, "Chatterton's work contains in essence the whole of Romanticism". This selection, with its detailed notes, shows the historical significance and unexpected range of Chatterton's poetry, and also enables the reader to enjoy it for its rich resonance and wonderfully memorable rhythms.

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Book SynopsisA complete volume of the writer's poetry and songs includes previously unpublished pieces, draws on extensive scholarship and Burn's own letters, and offers supplemental information about his life, early hardships, political beliefs, and literary contexts.Trade ReviewA magnificent and definitive work of scholarship. A thousand pages long, it provides not only a glossary and a context for the poems, but also a textual and historical note for each poem and song. -- Colm Toibin * * The Independent * *A very fine edition, and the long introduction, which sets out to clear the tangled banks, is alone worth the cover price. -- Andrew O'Hagan * * The Scotsman * *Scholarly and comprehensive. * * Sunday Telegraph * *

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Book SynopsisImagine sitting with an esteemed writer on his or her front porch somewhere in the world and swapping life stories. Dr. Wayne Flynt got the opportunity to do just this with Nelle Harper Lee. In a friendship that blossomed over a dozen years starting when Lee relocated back to Alabama after having had a stroke, Flynt and his wife Dartie became regular visitors at the assisted living facility that was Lee’s new home. And there the conversation began. It began where it always begins with Southern storytellers, with an invitation to "Come in, sit down, and stay a while."The stories exchanged ranged widely over the topics of Alabama history, Alabama folklore, family genealogy, and American literature, of course. On the way from beginning to end there were many detours: talks about Huntingdon College; The University of Alabama; New York City; the United Kingdom; Garden City, Kansas; and Mobile, Alabama, to name just a few. Wayne and his wife were often joined by Alice Lee, the oldest Lee sister, a living encyclopedia on the subject of family genealogy, and middle sister Louise Lee Conner. The hours spent visiting, in intimate closeness, are still cherished by Wayne Flynt. They yielded revelations large and small, which have been shaped into Afternoons with Harper Lee. Part memoir, part biography, this book offers a unique window into the life and mind and preoccupations of one of America’s best-loved writers. Flynt and Harper Lee and her sisters learned a great deal from each other, and though this is not a history book, their shared interest in Alabama and its history made this extraordinary work possible.

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Book SynopsisAn accessibly-written survey of the origins and growth of the discipline of medievalism studies. The field known as "medievalism studies" concerns the life of the Middle Ages after the Middle Ages. Originating some thirty years ago, it examines reinventions and reworkings of the medieval from the Reformation to postmodernity,from Bale and Leland to HBO's Game of Thrones. But what exactly is it? An offshoot of medieval studies? A version of reception studies? Or a new form of cultural studies? Can such a diverse field claim coherence? Should it be housed in departments of English, or History, or should it always be interdisciplinary? In responding to such questions, the author traces the history of medievalism from its earliest appearances in the sixteenth century to the present day, across a range of examples drawn from the spheres of literature, art, architecture, music and more. He identifies two major modes, the grotesque and the romantic, and focuses on key phases of the development of medievalism in Europe: the Reformation, the late eighteenth century, and above all the period between 1815 and 1850, which, he argues, represents the zenith of medievalist cultural production. He also contends that the 1840s were medievalism's one moment of canonicity in several European cultures at once. After that, medievalism became a minority form, rarely marked with cultural prestige, though always pervasive and influential. Medievalism: a Critical History scrutinises several key categories - space, time, and selfhood - and traces the impact of medievalism on each. It will be the essential guide to a complex and still evolving field of inquiry. David Matthews is Professor of Medieval and Medievalism Studies at the University of Manchester.Trade ReviewA major new work on medievalism, it deserves to be studied by students or scholars interested in this latest period of a medieval revival. * PARERGON *This book is a highly informative, accessible, and occasionally humorous guide for anyone interested in learning about medievalism on a macro-scale. * TOEBI *Matthews' account of the history and contemporary status of medievalism is both highly readable (he is an elegant stylist) and frequently provocative. . . . [He] offers a fresh overview and compelling meta-commentary on the history and practice of medievalism, focusing on its uneasy relationship with medieval studies. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *In his well-researched book, Medievalism: A Critical History, David Matthews provides a foundational study for the multidisciplinary field of medievalism studies. * MEDIEVALLY SPEAKING *Tracing the history of medievalism from the 16th century to today, the author closely examines significant phases in the development of medievalism studies, paying special attention to the period between 1815 and 1850, which he cogently argues was the apogee of medievalism in European popular culture, and provides the foundation for the relationship between medievalism and medieval studies. Recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction How Many Middle Ages? "Welcome to the Current Middle Ages": Asynchronous Medievalism This Way to the Middle Ages: The Spaces of Medievalism On Being Medieval: Medievalist Selves and Societies Wemmick's Castle: The Limits of Medievalism Realism in the Crypt: The Reach of Medievalism Conclusion: Against a Synthesis: Medievalism, Cultural Studies, and Antidisciplinarity Afterword Appendix I: The Survey of Reenactors Appendix II: Key Moments in Medievalism Bibliography

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Book SynopsisWith clear, conversational prose, this is the first book dedicated entirely to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s writings on translation. Through his many critically acclaimed novels, stories, essays, plays, and memoirs, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has been at the forefront of world literature for decades. He has also been, in his own words, “a language warrior,” fighting for indigenous African languages to find their rightful place in the literary world. Having begun his writing career in English, Ngũgĩ shifted to writing in his native language Gikũyũ in 1977, a stance both creatively and politically significant. For decades now, Ngũgĩ has been translating his Gikũyũ works into English himself, and he has used many platforms to champion the practice and cause of literary translations, which he calls “the language of languages.” This volume brings together for the first time Ngũgĩ’s essays and lectures about translation, written and delivered over the past two decades. Here we find Ngũgĩ discussing translation as a conversation between cultures; proposing that dialogue among African languages is the way to unify African peoples; reflecting on the complexities of auto-translation or translating one’s own work; exploring the essential task translation performed in the history of the propagation of thought; and pleading for the hierarchy of languages to be torn down. He also shares his many experiences of writing across languages, including his story The Upright Revolution, which has been translated into more than a hundred languages around the globe and is the most widely translated text written by an African author. At a time when dialogues between cultures and peoples are more essential than ever, The Language of Languages makes an outspoken case for the value of literature without borders. Table of Contents1.Translation: Towards a Global Conversation among Languages and Cultures2.Finding Our Way: Dialogue Among Our Languages is the Way to the Unity of African Peoples3.Translation, Restoration and a Global Culture4.Encounters with Translation: A Globalectic View5.Languages as Bridges6.Preface to Kurdish Translation of Decolonising the Mind7.Archipelago of Treasures8.Adventures in Translation9.The Politics of Translation: Notes Towards an African Language Policy

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Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging study offers a new understanding of Old Norse kinship in which the individual self was expanded to encompass its kin. Family interactions in Old Norse myth and legend were often fraught, competitive, even violent as well as loving, protective and supportive. Focusing particularly on intergenerational relationships in the legendary sagas, the Poetic Edda and Snorra Edda, this book reveals not only why ambivalence was so characteristic of mythic-heroic kinship relations but how they were able to endure, even thrive, in spite of such pressures. Close attention is paid to the way gender inflects the dynamic between parents and their children and to the patronymic naming system which prevailed in Old Norse society, while outdated assumptions about the existence of a special relationship between a man and his sister's son inherited from earlier Germanic society are reassessed for the first time in decades. What emerges from this wide-ranging study is a new understanding of Old Norse kinship as a dynamic transpersonal process rather than a presocial fact, in which the individual self was expanded to encompass its kin. Taking the lead from recent anthropological research into kinship and with exciting implications for our understanding of Old Norse personhood, emotions, and the life course, this book challenges its readers to rethink many of the basic ontological assumptions which they bring to their interpretations of Old Norse myth and legend.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements A Note on Conventions List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Fathers and Sons 2. Fathers and Daughters 3. Mothers and their Children 4. Uncles and Aunts 5. The Patronymic System 6. Kinship and Narrative Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA bold and adventurous work of literature that explores the relationship between reading, writing, sex, and death. The first book in Pascal Quignard's Last Kingdom series, The Roving Shadows can be read as a long meditation on reading and writing that strives to situate these otherwise innocuous activities in a profound relationship to sex and death. Writing and reading can in fact be linked to our animal natures and artistic strivings, to primal forces and culturally persistent fascinations. With dexterity and inventiveness, Quignard weaves together historical anecdotes, folktales from the East and West, fragments of myth, and speculative historical reconstructions. The whole, written in a musical style not far removed from that of Couperin, whose piano composition Les Ombres errantes lends the book its title, coheres into a work of literature that reverberates in the psyche long after one has laid it down. The Roving Shadows is a rare and wondrous tour de force that cements Quignar

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Book SynopsisA revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life.In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and occasional embarrassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary. When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov’s talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov’s domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their family's serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama. In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon. Trade Review"[Chekhov Becomes Chekhov] captures the turn in Chekhov’s life. Blaisdell’s entertaining book traces this change in Chekhov’s self-perception and allows us to trace the emergence of a literary genius." * The New York Review of Books *"Absorbing, pleasurable, and as unaffected as its subject. [Blaisdell] doesn’t simply (as the title promises) explain how Chekhov came to be Chekhov but rather how impossible it was for him to become anybody else. It’s the sort of book that dedicated readers rarely find, one that doesn’t presume to teach us about Chekhov so much as simply enjoy him. It is like reading along with a fellow lover of Chekhov, attentive to the nuances of the life behind the work." -- Scott Bradfield * The New Republic *“A celebration of the enduring power of literary creativity. The mystery of Chekhov’s genius is thrown into even sharper relief, a rare accomplishment in a genre that’s often the playground of know-it-alls. Blaisdell’s reading reaps handsome rewards. The author’s overflowing enthusiasm never distracts from the main performance––Anton Chekhov’s miraculous transformation from paid humorist to profound commentator on the human condition. As we turn the pages of Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, the author’s delight is ours, too.” * The Wall Street Journal *"A work of love...Blaisdell’s incredibly researched work is a treasure trove of insight and information for scholars and fans of Russian literature. For generations to come, it will be a staple for Chekhov studies." * Library Journal, starred review *“Two years in the life and work of the Russian master, where Blaisdell draws from Chekhov’s personal correspondence and references several previous biographies in conjunction with close readings of his numerous stories. Blaisdell offers meaningful insights into Chekhov’s life and writing.” * Kirkus Reviews *"A penetrating take on Anton Chekhov's development as a writer. Blaisdell seamlessly blends biography and critical analysis to offer a bracing look at a formative period in the life of a literary legend. The result is a stirring portrait of an artist coming into his own." * Publishers Weekly *Praise for Creating Anna Karenina: "That Creating Anna Karenina is a major contribution to Tolstoy scholarship makes it no less of a delight to read. Blaisdell's passion for the subject, and his always-surprising discoveries about the great man and his creation, kept me turning the pages unstoppably. This is a wonderful book." -- Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia, staff writer at The New Yorker“Captivating. How did Anna Karenina evolve from a trivial high-society adulteress, whom Tolstoy despised, into one of the deepest, most sensitive tragic heroines in all of literature? What happened inside Tolstoy to condition this metamorphosis? Creating Anna Karenina is a worthy companion to the novel." -- Janet Fitch * Los Angeles Review of Books *"In its study of the comings and goings of the Tolstoy household at the time of the novel’s composition, Creating Anna Karenina asks if one of the world’s greatest novels was in fact just as much a product of everyday minutia—like who stops by for a visit with what kind of gossip to tell—as it was the culmination of long-simmering ideas about morality and desire." * The New Republic *"A fuller understanding of any work—and especially of its creation—requires the resurrection of its creator and his milieu. Blaisdell manages to do precisely that." -- Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor, Los Angeles Review of Books, from the Foreword

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Book SynopsisBehrouz Boochani is a Kurdish-Iranian writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate and filmmaker. Boochani was a writer and editor for the Kurdish language magazine Werya in Iran. He is a Visiting Professor, Birkbeck Law School; Associate Professor in Social Sciences at UNSW; non-resident Visiting Scholar at the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre (SAPMiC), University of Sydney; Honorary Member of PEN International; and winner of an Amnesty International Australia 2017 Media Award, the Diaspora Symposium Social Justice Award, the Liberty Victoria 2018 Empty Chair Award, and the Anna Politkovskaya award for journalism. He publishes regularly with The Guardian, and his writing also features in The Saturday Paper, Huffington Post, New Matilda, The Financial Times and The Sydney Morning Herald. Boochani is also co-director (with Arash Kamali Sarvestani) of the 2017 feature-length film Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time; and collaborator on Nazanin Sahamizadeh's play Manus. His book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature in addition to the Nonfiction category. He has also won the Special Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the Australian Book Industry Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year, and the National Biography Prize. Omid Tofighian is Adjunct Lecturer in the School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales; and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck Law, University of London. He is an award-winning lecturer, researcher and community advocate, combining philosophy with interests in citizen media, popular culture, displacement and discrimination. He is the translator of Behrouz Boochani's multi-award winning book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison (2018).Moones Mansoubi is a community, arts and cultural development worker based in Sydney. Her work is dedicated mainly to supporting and collaborating with migrants and people seeking asylum in Australia. She has managed numerous community and cultural projects and the first translator of Behrouz Boochani's work when he began writing from Manus Island. She was translation consultant for Boochani's book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Picador Australia 2018). Her translation of the article An Island Off Manus (Saturday Paper 6 May, 2017) was included in Boochani's winning nomination for the Amnesty Media Award in 2017. Moones has a Masters Degree in International Relations and is passionate about social justice and social cohesion. She is currently coordinator of the Community Refugee Welcome Centre in Inner West Sydney and a content producer for SBS Radio, Persian program.Trade ReviewBehrouz Boochani’s prison writings transcend journalism to become both a cry for justice, and an anatomy of a brutal prison system designed to strip its inmates of their identity, their aspirations, their agency, and crush their spirit. His writings are urgent, eloquent, and desperately poetic. Writing from within his Manus Prison, Boochani exposes the horror and inhumanity of Australia’s offshore detention system, yet he also captures the uniqueness, comradeship, and intimate acts of resistance of his fellow inmates, and affirms their full humanity. He fulfils his mission, his “duty to history”, and ensures that this dark chapter in Australian history, and those who suffered its consequences are not forgotten. A tour de force in bearing witness. * Arnold Zable, author of The Fig Tree *International law entitled people fleeing persecution to claim asylum. But those who seek refuge in Australia are subjected to indefinite offshore detention – a form of torture designed to sap their spirit and traumatise their minds. Behrouz Boochani survives to tell the truth about the cruelty of this policy, in a book which should open the eyes of Australians to a cruelty for which they are politically and morally responsible. These are writings of literary power and first-hand authenticity, with a message of urgent importance at a time when the siren slogan of “offshore detention” is appealing to governments in the UK and elsewhere. When will we recognise that it is both unprincipled and inhumane to punish the innocent? * Geoffrey Robertson AO QC *No Friend But the Mountains was a classic of Australian literature; Freedom, Only Freedom is something better. It is the definitive statement on freedom from a diverse group of writers working together on familiar themes. * ArtsHub *Behrouz Boochani’s newspaper articles about the “Manus Prison” have lost none of their original immediacy. This book also showcases some of the rich conversations prompted by his writings. A must-read for anybody wondering about what might happen when governments opt for an Australian “solution” and shirk their responsibilities towards refugees. * Klaus Neumann, author of Across the Seas (2015) *Behrouz Boochani’s work matters not merely because it bears journalistic witness to the brutality of mandatory refugee detentions but also because it distils that experience into a sophisticated theory of power and resistance. This book offers a deep engagement with a truly original writer. * Jeff Sparrow, author of Crimes Against Nature, (2021) *No writer wants to be a prison writer, no exile dreams of displacement without end. But nothing illuminates totalitarian thinking better than the power of creative imagination. We are fortunate that Behrouz Boochani and his friends summoned the courage to push the experience of Australia’s refugee regime into words. This stunning collection chronicles Boochani’s determination not to vanish. Freedom, Only Freedom is absolutely necessary reading for all those who want to understand what moral responsibility, political courage, and the anti-totalitarian imagination mean today. * Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Humanities and Human Rights, University of Birmingham, UK, and author of Placeless People *Focused on - but not limited to - his individual journey into exile, Behrouz Bouchani’s Freedom Only Freedom offers a provocative and vivid criticism of politics of incarceration, alienation, and subjugation of displaced refugees across the world with specific reference to the case Australia. He has created a new lexicon to reckon with the traumas of border-crossing, displacement, and alienation. * Fatemeh Shams, author of A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-Option Under the Islamic Republic *A necessary book in the era of border fetishism. Boochani shows us that the current punitive migration measures are rooted in a racist colonial history. Through linking the struggle of the indigenous people of Kurdistan to the struggle of migrants incarcerated by the Australian state in Manus Prison Boochani unfolds how a progressive political subjectivity emerges from the ruins of the nation-states system. Freedom, Only Freedom is a collection of critical and thoughtful contributions to scholarship on contemporary bordering practices. * Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University, Sweden *Manus is a polite form of torture, designed to deny us the privilege of people like Behrouz. It is often forgotten that the trial judgment in the Tampa case was delivered just 8 hours before the terrible 9/11 attack on America. Our government ramped up calling boat people like Behrouz “illegals”. It’s a lie: Behrouz points out that he broke no law, committed no crime, and had no trial, but was jailed for years. * Julian Burnside, AO, KC *This collected volume of Boochani's prison writings - supported and contextualised by essays from experts in migration, refugee rights, politics and literature - is profound and necessary reading for anyone interested in literature and human rights. Boochani's prison writings, though produced under horrendous conditions, are poetic, sharp in observation and generous in ambit. His body of work documenting firsthand the atrocities inflicted on refugees by the Australian government and their mandatory detention policies has allowed the world to bear witness to human rights violations which might otherwise have remained in the dark. * Maxine Clarke, Author of The Hate Race *The poetic and essayistic pieces in Freedom, Only Freedom: The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani exemplify the intersection of his prodigious literary and artistic creativity with his formidable political-geographical, political-scientific and journalistic expertise. Boochani and his collaborators undo familiar frames of reference with respect to the political space of incarcerated seekers of sanctuary and share intimate imaginaries of environmentally conceived pathways to healing and justice. * Rita Sakr, Maynooth University, Ireland *Table of ContentsList of Figures Foreword by Tara June Winch Writing in Languages of Freedom by Omid Tofighian Map Part One 2013-2015 - ‘Fighting to Take Back My Identity’: Creating a New Language in Collaboration “Becoming MEG45” by Behrouz Boochani “Unpublished Reports: Untitled and Two Souls, One Body” by Behrouz Boochani “Translating Manus and Nauru: Refugee Writing” by Moones Mansoubi “Collaborating with Behrouz Boochani: Journalists Against a System” by Ben Doherty Part Two 2016 (Feb-April) - A New Theory: Examining the Prison, Exposing the System “This is Manus Island. My Prison. My Torture. My Humiliation” by Behrouz Boochani “Life on Manus: Island of Damned” by Behrouz Boochani “Australia, Exceptional in its Brutality” by Behrouz Boochani “Testifying to History” by Jordana Silverstein Part Three 2016 (June-Dec) - Journalism as Minor Epics: Confrontation, Survival and Death “What it's Like in Solitary Confinement on Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “For Refugees Kidnapped and Exiled to the Manus Prison, Hope is Our Secret Weapon” by Behrouz Boochani “Untitled” by Behrouz Boochani “The Day My Friend Hamid Khazaei Died” by Behrouz Boochani “Faysal Ishak Ahmed’s Life was Full of Pain. Australia Had a Duty to Protect Him” by Behrouz Boochani “Time and Borders, Policy and Lived Experience: A Posthumanist Critique” by Sajad Kabgani “Kurdish Identity and Journalism: Reporting to Record History” by Roza Germian Part Four 2017 (Mar-Sept) - Introducing the Kyriarchal System: Knowing Manus Prison “A Kyriarchal System: New Colonial Experiments/New Decolonial Resistance” by Behrouz Boochani “Unpublished Report: Untitled” by Behrouz Boochani “An Island off Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “The Tortuous Demise of Hamed Shamshiripour, Who Didn’t Deserve to Die on Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “‘The Man Who Loves Ducks’: The Refugee Saving Animals on Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “Epistemic Violence, Aesthetic Breaks, and the Man Who Loves Ducks” by Anne McNevin “Exposing ‘Incalculable Cruelty’: Writings on Border Harms and Atrocity as Resistance” by Victoria Canning Part Five 2017 (Oct-Dec) - The Siege on Manus Prison: 23 Days of Collective Resistance “Days Before the Forced Closure of Manus We Have No Safe Place to Go” by Behrouz Boochani “Diary of Disaster” by Behrouz Boochani “The Refugees Are in a State of Terror on Manus”bu Behrouz Boochani “A Merciless Fear Provoked by Last Night's Events has Gripped the Manus Island Camp” by Behrouz Boochani “Manus is a Landscape of Surreal Horror” by Behrouz Boochani “The Breath of Death on Manus Island: Starvation and Sickness” by Behrouz Boochani “All We Want is Freedom – Not Another Prison Camp” by Behrouz Boochani “I Write from Manus as a Duty to History.” By Behrouz Boochani “A Letter from Manus Island” by Behrouz Boochani “23 Days of Resistance Alongside Behrouz Boochani” by Shaminda Kanapathi “Words That Escaped from Prison” by Erik Jensen Part Six 2018 (Feb-June) - A Duty to History: Dignity, Time and Identity “Four Years After Reza Barati’s Death, We Still Have No Justice” by Behrouz Boochani “Policy of Exile” by Behrouz Boochani “Mohamed’s Life Story is a Tragedy. But it’s Typical for Father’s Held on Manus” by Behrouz Boochani “The Gay, Transgender and Biosexual men on Manus are Forced into Silence” by Behrouz Boochani “Salim Fled Genocide to Find Safety. He Lost his Life in the Most Tragic Way” by Behrouz Boochani “Manus Island Poem” by Behrouz Boochani “Journalism, Borders and Oppression: The Nauru Context” by Elahe Zivardar and Mehran Ghadiri “On Mothers, Nature and the Body” by Fatima Measham Part Seven 2018 (Aug)-2019 (Apr) - Manus Prison Theory: Creating a Body of Knowledge “Manus Prison Theory” by Behrouz Boochani “Australia Needs a Moral Revolution” by Behrouz Boochani “Five Years in Manus Purgatory” by Behrouz Boochani “’Sam Could Have Been Saved’: Where Does the Money for Healthcare Go on Manus?” by Behrouz Boochani “The Paladin Scandal is Only a Drop in the Ocean of Corruption on Manus and Nauru” by Behrouz Boochani “The 'Papua New Guinea Solution' in Australia's Public Discourse and Human Rights Activism” by Mahnaz Alimardanian “Australian Corruption and the Pacific: Dollars, Displacement and Death” by Helen Davidson Part Eight 2019 (May-Oct) - Writing to Keep Hope Alive/New Dimensions to Systematic Torture “This Election is an Opportunity to Vote for Humanity and Freedom” by Behrouz Boochani “’The Boats are Coming’ is One of the Greatest Lies Told to the Australian People” by Behrouz Boochani “The truth about self-harm in offshore detention” by Behrouz Boochani “Purification by Love” by Behrouz Boochani “Emotion, Responsibility and Hope for Different Futures” by Claudia Tazreiter “Prison Notebooks and the Oceanic-Kurdish Connection: Boochani’s Political Reflectivity” by Steven Ratuva Part Nine 2020 (May-June) – New Narratives and Knowledge: New Writing and Collaboration “As I learn to live in freedom, Australia is still tormenting refugees” by Behrouz Boochani “’A Human Being Feels They Are On a Precipice’: COVID-19’s Threshold Moment” by Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian “Boochani’s ‘Political Poetics’: Subverting and Reimagining the Fiction of Politics” by Anne Surma “Journalism as Dialogue: Creating Collective Activism Through the Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani” by Lida Amiri Part Ten 2020 (Sept) – Neocolonial experiments/Creative resistance “For the refugees Australia Imprisons Music is Liberation, Life and Defiance” by Behrouz Boochani “’White Australia’ Policy Lives On in Immigration Detention” by Behrouz Boochani “On Documentation, Language, and Social Media” by Arianna Grasso “Carceral Coloniality as a History of the Present” by Helena Zeweri List of Contributors

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a detailed critical analysis of a period of significant formal and thematic innovation in Muriel Spark's literary career.Trade Review"Muriel Spark's Early Fiction is a magnificent achievement, bursting with revealing and original insights into Spark's fiction and the enduring preoccupations and working methods of this most singular author. The result is a welcome addition to the process Spark scholars have embarked upon in recent years: extricating (or 'desegregating') the author from the various literary-critical categories that once confined her. Bailey's approach is flexible and multi-faceted by contrast, and draws on an impressively extensive use of previously unexamined archival material. The reader is provided with illuminating explorations of 'instances of narrative daring' during the first two decades of Spark's career which range from under-examined early short stories to key texts such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Driver's Seat, and place the emphasis on her enduring commitment to highlight the ways women become inscribed in oppressive cultural narratives. It is a rich and readable monograph which lives up to its ambition to establish a more complex and appropriate framework to discuss Spark in our current critical era, and will therefore be essential reading for those embarking on future studies of one of the most brilliant and unusual writers of the second half of the Twentieth Century." -Bran Nicol, University of Surrey

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Book SynopsisA rigorously and imaginatively researched anthology of classical literature, bringing together one hundred stories from the rich diversity of the literary canon of ancient Greece and Rome. Striking a balance between the 'classic classic' (such as Dryden's translation of the Aeneid) and the less familiar or expected, Of Gods and Men ranges from the epic poetry of Homer to the histories of Arrian and Diodorus Siculus and the sprawling Theogony of Hesiod; from the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides to the biographies of Suetonius and Plutarch and the pen portraits of Theophrastus; and from the comedies of Plautus to the fictions of Petronius and Apuleius. Of Gods and Men is embellished by translations from writers as diverse as Queen Elizabeth I (Boethius), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Plato), Walter Pater (Apuleius's Golden Ass), Lawrence of Arabia (Homer's Odyssey), Louis MacNeice (Aeschylus's Agamemnon) and Ted Hughes (Ovid's Pygmalion), as well as a number of accomplished translations by Daisy Dunn herself.Trade ReviewThis book is a big and wonderful read for anyone who loves classical literature... Each story is a truly fascinating tale of wars, endless fighting, heroes, deaths, beautiful women – Helen features, of course – gods and goddesses, cruelty, pain and love * Pennant Magazine *This is an excellent collection. Everyone needs to know the Classics, and this volume is a good place not just to start but also to continue and depend one's love for the Ancients * Catholic Herald *The book is perfect gift material but really, you should treat yourself to it first * Minerva *This anthology is hard to beat for big names * BBC History Magazine *

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Book Synopsis Isaac Asimov’s Foundation is the most influential science-fiction epic of all time. Published as a series of books and short stories from the 1940s to the 1980s, the series has impacted most subsequent science fiction, and influenced sciences like sociology, statistics, and psychology. The story has now been made into a highly acclaimed TV serial (Foundation), on Apple TV, the second season now shooting in Prague. The story begins 45,000 years in the future, and spans centuries in which a vast and successful interstellar human empire is unknowingly headed for total collapse. Using an advanced mathematical technique called psycho-history, a brilliant scientist, Hari Seldon, predicts the collapse and establishes a “foundation” to bring about the resurrection of human civilization many generations in the future.Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy is a collection of twenty-four chapter by philosophers exploring the philosophical issues and puzzles raised by this epic story. Topics include whether one individual can make a big difference in history, the ethics of manipulating large populations of people to bring about a desirable future result, the Dao of non-action, the impact of education on future generations, whether human affairs are governed by predictable cycles, whether attempts to plan for the future must be thwarted by free will, the futility of empire-building, the ethics of cloning human beings, and the use of logic in analyzing human behavior.Joshua Heter teaches philosophy at Jefferson College, Missouri, and is co-editor of Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam (2022).Josef Thomas Simpson is an academic coach and part-time lecturer. He contributed chapters to Westworld and Philosophy: Mind Equals Blown (2019) and Orphan Black and Philosophy: Grand Theft DNA (2016).Trade ReviewIsaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much non-fiction. (Wikipedia) Simply stated, novelist Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy is arguably the most influential science-fiction epic of all time. Published as a series of books and short stories from the 1940s to the 1980s, the series has impacted most subsequent science fiction, and influenced sciences like sociology, statistics, and psychology. The story has now been made into a highly acclaimed TV serial (Foundation), on Apple TV, the second season now shooting in Prague. The story begins 45,000 years in the future, and spans centuries in which a vast and successful interstellar human empire is unknowingly headed for total collapse. Using an advanced mathematical technique called psycho-history, a brilliant scientist, Hari Seldon, predicts the collapse and establishes a "foundation" to bring about the resurrection of human civilization many generations in the future. Asimov's Foundation and Philosophy is a collection of twenty-four chapter by philosophers exploring the philosophical issues and puzzles raised by this epic story. Topics include whether one individual can make a big difference in history, the ethics of manipulating large populations of people to bring about a desirable future result, the Dao of non-action, the impact of education on future generations, whether human affairs are governed by predictable cycles, whether attempts to plan for the future must be thwarted by free will, the futility of empire-building, the ethics of cloning human beings, and the use of logic in analyzing human behavior. Critique: Of special appeal to the legions of Isaac Asimov fans, and deftly co-edited by the team of Joshua Heter and Josef Thomas Simpson, "Asimov's Foundation and Philosophy" is a compendium of twenty-three erudite and inherently interesting articles on the impact of the Foundation series on popular culture, introducing the concept of 'psychohistory'. Enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of an eight page Bibliography, a four page listing of the contributors and their credentials (The Encyclopedists), and a three page Index, "Asimov's Foundation and Philosophy" is a significant and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, community, and academic library Popular Culture & Philosophy collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that "Asimov's Foundation and Philosophy" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.99). Editorial Note #1: Joshua Heter (https://philpeople.org/profiles/joshua-heter) teaches philosophy at Jefferson College, Missouri, and is co-editor of Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam (2022). Editorial Note #2: Josef Thomas Simpson (https://philpeople.org/profiles/josef-thomas-simpson) is an academic coach and part-time lecturer. He contributed chapters to Westworld and Philosophy: Mind Equals Blown (2019) and Orphan Black and Philosophy: Grand Theft DNA (2016).

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Book SynopsisBombarded with the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb a day for half a century, Pacific people have long been subjected to man-made cataclysm. Well before climate change became a global concern, nuclear testing brought about untimely death, widespread diseases, forced migration, and irreparable destruction to the shores of Oceania. In The Ocean on Fire, Anaïs Maurer analyzes the Pacific literature that incriminates the environmental racism behind radioactive skies and rising seas. Maurer identifies strategies of resistance uniting the region by analyzing an extensive multilingual archive of decolonial Pacific art in French, Spanish, English, Tahitian, and Uvean, ranging from literature to songs and paintings. She shows how Pacific nuclear survivors’ stories reveal an alternative vision of the apocalypse: instead of promoting individualism and survivalism, they advocate mutual assistance, cultural resilience, South-South transnational solidarities, and Indigenous women&r

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Book SynopsisSurrealist women’s writing: A critical exploration is the first sustained critical inquiry into the writing of women associated with surrealism. Featuring original essays by leading scholars of surrealism, the volume demonstrates the extent and the historical, linguistic, and culturally contextual breadth of this writing. It also highlights how the specifically surrealist poetics and politics of these writers’ work intersect with and contribute to contemporary debates on, for example, gender, sexuality, subjectivity, otherness, anthropocentrism, and the environment.Drawing on a variety of innovative theoretical approaches, the essays in the volume focus on the writing of numerous women surrealists, many of whom have hitherto mainly been known for their visual rather than their literary production. These include Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage, Colette Peignot, Suzanne Césaire, Unica Zürn, Ithell Colquhoun, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and Rikki Ducornet.Trade Review'This book does not attempt to impose a harmonious, all-encompassing feminist perspective that would gloss over the complexities of being a ‘woman writer’ within the grand scheme of surrealism, but looks, rather, to highlight differences and ambivalences, enriching the discourse surrounding this literature. An enthralling and intensely intellectual investigation into surrealist women’s writing, this study is of critical importance for literary scholars and admirers of surrealism as it offers a profound reconsideration of these ten authors.'French Studies'The 11 essays in the collection look at the work of Claude Cahun, Lenora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, Colette Peignot, Kay Sage, and Unica Zürn, among others. Beyond examining the women’s literary work, the essays show how these writers’ work informs contemporary discussion of gender, sexuality, ecocriticism, the Other, and the Anthropocene. Wetz’s excellent introduction frames the questions and concerns surrealist women writers explored in their work.'CHOICE(Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association.)'This book has much to offer to animal studies, queer studies, and ecocritical and ecofeminist studies... and it will enrich scholarship on auto/biography and confessional writing... It will expand and enliven the category of women’s modernism. In spite of its focus on text, the collection will leave its readers with some startling images. But mostly, in ways both serious and playful, Surrealist Women’s Writing will show the imaginative gains to be made by breaking down barriers—of both gender and genre—and daring to stand out.'Modern Language Review -- .Table of ContentsIntroductionAnna Watz1 ‘The dung beetle’s snowball’: the philosophic narcissism of Claude Cahun’s essay-poetryFelicity Gee2 Identity convulsed: Leonora Carrington’s The House of Fear and The Oval LadyAnna Watz3 Recasting the human: Leonora Carrington’s dark exilic imaginationJeannette Baxter4 Colette Peignot: the purity of revoltMichael Richardson5 Suzanne Césaire’s surrealism: tightrope of hope Kara M. Rabbitt6 Kay Sage alive in the worldKatharine Conley7 Outside-in: translating Unica ZürnPatricia Allmer8 Ithell Colquhoun’s experimental poetry: surrealism, occultism, and postwar poetryMark S. Morrisson9 Leonor Fini’s abhuman familyJonathan P. Eburne10 ‘Open sesame’: Dorothea Tanning’s critical writingCatriona McAra11 Magic language, esoteric nature: Rikki Ducornet’s surrealist ecologyKristoffer NohedenBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe collected letters of John McGahern, 'one of the greatest writers of our era' (Hilary Mantel) and 'the most important Irish novelist since Samuel Beckett.' (Guardian)

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Book SynopsisMhaimbhat’s God at Play, or Līḷācaritra, is a remarkable biography of the medieval religious figure Chakradhar Svami, considered by the Mahanubhavs to be an incarnation of the supreme god. The first volume of this new English translation, accompanied by the Marathi text, describes Chakradhar’s early life, wanderings, and the gathering of disciples.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Here is the study of literary critical method we needed—a slim volume capable of displacing shelves of manifestos on the future of the discipline. What do literary critics know, and how do they know it? Criticism and Truth grounds our distinctive epistemology in everyday practices—how we quote and paraphrase our objects of study, share the medium of language with them, and build plot summaries. It captures the brilliance of literary critics everywhere, yet only Jonathan Kramnick could have written this gemlike book.” * Rachel Sagner Buurma, coauthor of "The Teaching Archive" *“In a highly skilled performance of his own, Kramnick discloses the artistry and creativity embedded in routine acts of close reading. Such methodological reflection is long overdue and marks an important step toward making literary critics' tacit values and abilities intelligible to themselves.” * Elaine Auyoung, University of Minnesota *“Criticism and Truth doesn’t just declare a truce in the method wars: it shows that our squabbling has obscured the deeper truth of a shared disciplinary craft. Lavishing his own considerable analytic gifts on the unfairly unloved genre of contemporary criticism, Kramnick beautifully describes—for what feels like the first time—what literary scholars do, and why their everyday virtuosity matters.” * David Kurnick, Rutgers University *“Animated by ardency and urgency, written in pellucid prose, argued with finesse and flair, Criticism and Truth is both beautiful and true. It persuades even as it galvanizes. Kramnick’s taut, elegant book should be read widely, its moral passion a beacon for all of us who care about the fate of literature and the humanities.” * Priscilla Gilman, author of "The Anti-Romantic Child" and "The Critic’s Daughter" *"The authorʼs meticulous analysis offers an eye-opening take on literary criticism as a creative process . . . English scholars will want to take a look." * Publishers Weekly *"[Kramnick] expresses alarm at the prospects of academic literary criticism’s continued existence as a recognized field of study within the contemporary university. . . . Articulating the place of literature in 'collective human flourishing'—or specifying what distinguishes literature from other kinds of written language, for that matter— falls outside Kramnick’s project at hand. Bracketing such questions. . . gives the book its quality of extreme concentration and lucidity in the pursuit of the common element in thriving academic literary criticism: the element that must be preserved, lest the whole discipline disappear. . . . [Criticism and Truth] merits attention beyond its field." -- Scott McLemee * Inside Higher Education *Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Craft Knowledge Chapter 1: Method Talk Chapter 2: Close Reading Chapter 3: Skilled Practice Chapter 4: Interpretation and Creativity Chapter 5: Verification Coda: Public Criticism for a Public Humanities Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisA Byron biography like no other published to mark the bicentennial of his death it tells the remarkable life story of the celebrated Romantic poet through ten of his best, most resonant letters. Using Byron's correspondence, Stauffer relates a vivid and engaging story of creativity, fame, sexual transgression and scandal.

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus offers the complete 1604 A-text with embedded selections from the 1616 B-text. Its innovative format will make it easier for readers to note differences between these texts and to consider what is gained and lost in viewing them both separately and together. A full Introduction to the play, notes, and a rich selection of related texts further enhance the value of this edition to students of Renaissance drama, Reformation theology, magic, and occult philosophy.Trade Review“This most recent edition of Doctor Faustus is guaranteed to appeal to a fresh, widespread audience of students and scholars. Uniquely combining the full A- and B-texts of the play, the edition offers new possibilities for analysis and interpretation. In addition to a generous introduction, replete with crucial data, the edition supplies readers with a bibliography, notes, and an abundant selection of related texts, including the Faustbook. The range of valuable information will surely attract not only Marlovians and all those interested in Renaissance drama and related, historical contextual matters, but anyone interested in accounting for how Doctor Faustus has achieved its enduring fame.” —Robert A. Logan, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Hartford

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Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot is regarded as the most important poetcritic of modern times, the twentieth century's Man of Letters' whose reputation was forged not only on the strength of his verse, but on the enduring influence of his critical writings. The Collected Prose presents those works that Eliot allowed to reach print in the order of their final revision or printing. Publishing across four volumes, the series aims to provide an authoritative and clean-text record of Eliot's approved texts and their revisions, beginning with his formative observations, written while he was at high school, and concluding in his final major opus, To Criticize the Critic, published in the months after his death.This second volume spans 19291934, a period in which Eliot's poetry was maturing into the reflective verse of Animula, Ash-Wednesday and Marina. It was also a moment that confirmed his critical reputation with the publication of Selected Essays

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Book SynopsisFever is a fast-paced thriller from New York Times bestselling author and master of the medical thriller, Robin Cook.When his wife died of cancer and he desperately needed to know why, Doctor Charles Martel turned to research. Then his world is shattered for the second time. His daughter is admitted to hospital; his research project is cancelled.Suddenly, he’s a man fighting against the odds.Against doctors who want to treat his daughter’s leukaemia the wrong way.Against a research institute that puts profits before ethics.Odds enough to turn a responsible citizen into a desperate criminal . . .Trade ReviewThe master of the medical thriller. * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Hindley paints a picture of magic’s place in medieval England, producing an eye-opening study of ‘words at their most powerful’ . . . that promise[s] to change the way we think about magic in the medieval world.” -- Mary Flannery * Times Literary Supplement *"A thought-provoking look at the distinctive ways medieval English people viewed language [that] intrigues. It’s an enlightening deep dive." * Publishers Weekly *“Hindley carefully and fruitfully rethinks what charms tell us about written and oral aspects of culture, drawing on a wonderfully abundant collection of source material from a period in which charms proliferated but were often kept secret. A valuable contribution to the history of magic, her book sheds light on both an impressively diverse archive and the implications of their textuality.” -- Richard Kieckhefer, Northwestern University“Hindley guides readers through the complete history of spoken and written charms in medieval England with seasoned ease. Through close readings and the latest archaeological insights, Textual Magic offers an indispensable introduction to medieval English charms, packed with examples in both their original language and modern English translation.” -- Lea Olsan, University of Louisiana at Monroe“Textual Magic is a significant new work in medieval studies, generously illustrated with images and transcriptions of charm texts. In particular, Hindley’s focus on the instructions accompanying charms and her awareness of their multilingual contexts are welcome additions to the literature on verbal charms.” -- Jonathan Roper, University of TartuTable of ContentsList of Boxes Note on Translation and Transcription Abbreviations Introduction Reading, Writing, and Charming Chapter 1 The Powers of Charm-Words and Relics Chapter 2 Before 1100: “Textual Magic” in Pre-Conquest England Chapter 3 1100 to 1350: Charm Language and the Boundaries of Text Chapter 4 1350 to 1500: “A Fayre Charme on Englysh” Conclusion The Changing Power of Words Acknowledgments Manuscripts Cited Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisCompiled in the early tenth century, the Kokinshū is an anthology of some eleven hundred poems that became celebrated as the cornerstone of the Japanese vernacular poetic tradition. This book offers an inviting and immersive selection of roughly one-third of the anthology in English translation.Trade ReviewThese eminently readable and often beautiful translations will appeal to a new generation of readers in Japanese studies and beyond. The accompanying essays survey the genesis and afterlives of the collection and offer significant new insights on the original language of the poems and how to appreciate them in translation. -- Joseph T. Sorensen, author of Optical Allusions: Screens, Paintings, and Poetry in Classical Japan (ca. 800–1200)From the cries of the warbler in spring to the lonely nights of longing for a lover, Duthie offers fresh translations from each book of the Kokinshū, while grounding us in histories of scripts, reading and writing practices, and the power of poetry in premodern Japan. -- Christina Laffin, author of Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women: Politics, Personality, and Literary Production in the Life of Nun AbutsuThis book should appeal to anyone interested in Japanese poetry, both for its evocative rendering of selections from the Kokinshū and for its concisely informative account of the classic waka anthology. -- Gustav Heldt, translator of The Kojiki: An Account of Ancient MattersTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. TranslationMana PrefaceSelected Poems from the KokinwakashūKana PrefacePart II. Essays1. Poetry Before the Heian Period2. The Heian Court and Kana Writing3. The Conception and Structure of the Kokinshū4. Topics of Composition5. Prosody and Rhetorical Conventions6. The Kokinshū Prefaces7. The Kokinshū Text and Its Commentarial Tradition8. Translating the KokinshūAppendix: Poets in This BookBibliography and Further ReadingIndex

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Book SynopsisIn Open Admissions Danica Savonick traces the largely untold story of the teaching experience of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich at the City University of New York (cuny) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This period, during which cuny guaranteed tuition-free admission to every city high school graduate, was one of the most controversial in US educational history. Analyzing their archival teaching materials—syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments—alongside their published work, Savonick reveals how these renowned writers were also transformative educators who developed creative methods of teaching their students to navigate and change the world. In fact, many of their methods—such as student-led courses, collaborative public projects, and the publication of student writing—anticipated the kinds of student-centered and antiracist pedagogies that have become popular in recent years. In addition to recovering the pedagogical le

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