Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Books
HarperCollins Publishers Good Wives Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Trade Review‘Six generations of readers have found in the story of the March family universal truths about girls, families and growing up.’ Guardian ‘The novel's brilliance lies in its unflinchingly honest representation of sympathetic but flawed women’ Independent ‘America’s best-loved author for the young’ New York Review of Books
£4.81
HarperCollins Publishers Hard Times Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.'Set in fictitious Coketown, England during the Industrial Revolution of the 1850s, Dickens wished to expose the enormous gulf between the rich and poor through his writing. In Hard Times, the social and moral purpose of his work is at its most evident. Openly ironic and satirical in its tone, Dickens suggests a mechanization of society, where the wealthy are ruthless and uncharitable towards those less fortunate than themselves.Siblings Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are raised by their father, a harsh and pragmatic educator and his influence means that they go on to lead lives that are lacking in all areas. Louisa marries the arrogant and greedy Josiah Bounderby, ending in an unhappy pairing and the unfee
£5.62
Random House USA Inc The Woman in White Introduction by Nicholas Rance
Book SynopsisWilkie Collins''s classic thriller took the world by storm on its first appearance in 1859, with everything from dances to perfumes to dresses named in honor of the woman in white. The novel''s continuing fascination stems in part from a distinctive blend of melodrama, comedy, and realism; and in part from the power of its story. The catalyst for the mystery is Walter Hartright''s encounter on a moonlit road with a mysterious woman dressed head to toe in white. She is in a state of confusion and distress, and when Hartright helps her find her way back to London she warns him against an unnamed man of rank and title. Hartright soon learns that she may have escaped from an asylum and finds to his amazement that her story may be connected to that of the woman he secretly loves. Collins brilliantly uses the device of multiple narrators to weave a story in which no one can be trusted, and he also famously creates, in the figure
£20.80
Pen & Sword Books Ltd The Dark Side of Alice in Wonderland
Book SynopsisAfter reading The Dark Side of Alice in Wonderland, you'll never see the original in quite the same light as before. Unique drawings created for this book.
£13.49
Oxford University Press The Picture of Dorian Gray
Book SynopsisDorian Gray gives his soul for eternal youth. While his portrait changes hideously, reflecting his crimes and corruption, he remains outwardly flawless. This new edition uses the 1891 expanded text and shows how Wilde transformed his many sources.Trade ReviewIt seemed to be an impossible task to outdo the former edition of 'Dorian Gray' in the World's Classics series, but Bristow has achieved his goal. The quality of the explanatory notes is, simply, superb, and the introduction is succint but informative,
£7.44
Oxford University Press The Pickwick Papers
Book SynopsisIn 1836 the 23-year-old Dickens was invited by his publishers to write `a monthly something'' illustrated by sporting plates. Thus the Pickwick Club was born: its supposed `papers'' soom outgrew their origins and became a brilliantly comic novel, still among Dicken''s most popular works. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review'The publication of this edition of ___The Pickwick Papers___ adds to the series of cheap but reliable coipes of Dicken's novels which are based on the formidable Clarendon editions ... authoritative introductions.' Margaret Reynolds, King's College, University of London'Extremely useful edition with excellent introduction, notes ete. and very reasonably priced' Norman Vance, Sussex University.
£8.99
Oxford University Press Great Expectations
Book SynopsisGreat Expectations includes some of Dickens's most memorable characters - Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Estella - encountered by young Pip as he grows into adulthood. This edition features a wide-ranging introduction, Dickens's working notes, the original ...
£7.44
Penguin Books Ltd Under the Greenwood Tree
Book SynopsisThe arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village''s musicians with his decision to abolish the church''s traditional ''string choir'' and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing.
£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers Uncle Toms Cabin
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.One thing is certain, - that there is a mustering among the masses, the world over; and there is a dis irae coming on, sooner or later.'Viewed by many as fuelling the abolitionist movement of the 1850s and laying the groundwork for the Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sentimental and moral tale of slaves attempting to secure their freedom was one of the most popular books of the nineteenth century. Centred round the long-suffering Uncle Tom, a devout Christian slave who endures cruelty and abuse from his owners, Tom is often celebrated as the first black hero in American fiction who refuses to obey his white masters. With other strong protagonists such as Eliza, a courageous slave who flees to the North with her son when she learns that he is to be sold, Beecher Stowe highlighted the plight of southern slaves and the breaking up of black families. Not without its controversy, more recent criticism has sugge
£5.37
University of California Press Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1
Book Synopsis"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away - to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." This title tells his story.Trade Review"Sometimes the autobiography seems Twain's letter to posterity. At other times, reading it feels like eavesdropping on a conversation he is having with himself... This first installment of Twain's autobiography brings us closer to all of him than we have ever come before." New York Review Of Books "This is a book to treasure for all friends of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn." Acadiana Lifestyle Magazine "Dip into the first enormous volume of Twain's autobiography that he had decreed should not appear until 100 years after his death. And Twain will begin to seem strange again, alluring and still astonishing, but less sure-footed, and at times both puzzled and puzzling in ways that still resonate with us, though not the ways we might expect." New York Times "This is a book for dipping, not plunging. Read, as Twain might put it, until interest pales, and then jump. It feels like a form of time travel." New York Times/The Opinion Pages "Twain generously provides the 21st century aficionado a marvelous read. His crystalline humor and expansive range are a continuous source of delight and awe... [He] has given us 'an astonishment' in his autobiography with his final, beautifully unorganized genius and intemperate thoughts. Pull up a chair and revel." Los Angeles Times Book Review "Mission accomplished, Mr. Clemens." -- Roger Boylan Boston Review "His "whole frank mind,' sharp and funny, is seared onto every page. A" Entertainment Weekly "Brimming with Twain's humor, ideas and opinions, this is a book for anyone interested in the writer's work and life." Curledup.com "Pure Twain at his typically discursive, rambling, and droll... The bard of Hannibal still has much to say." American Heritage "The bestseller chart is awash with memoirs -- but none offer the extreme reading of the Autobiography of Mark Twain." -- Debra Craine The Times "Twain's autobiography, finally available after a century, is a garrulous outpouring-and every word beguiles." Wall Street Journal "Promises a no-holds barred perspective on Twain's life, and will be rich with rambunctious, uncompromising opinions." Herald Scotland "Twain would approve!" Bookideas.com "Twain's writing here is electric, alternately moving and hilarious. He couldn't write a ho-hum sentence." Library Journal "A major achevement." Choice "Twian's 'Final Plan' has been released in a truly spectacular first volume of his posthumous 'Autobiography'." -- Vitali Vitaliev Engineering & Technology "With the uncensored Twain finally here, we're the furthest thing from indifferent." Time MagazineTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN An Early Attempt My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It] The Latest Attempt The Final (and Right) Plan Preface. As from the Grave The Florentine Dictations Autobiographical Dictations, January–March 1906 Appendix: Preliminary Manuscripts and Dictations Samuel L. Clemens: A Brief Chronology Family Biographies References Excerpt from Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2
£32.30
Princeton University Press Fearful Symmetry
Book SynopsisShows how William Blake arrived at a theory of knowledge that was also, for him, a theory of religion, of human life and of art, and how this rigorously defined system of ideas found expression in the complicated but consistent symbolism of his poetry.Trade Review"A magnificent, extraordinary book... Several great poets have written of Blake, but this book is the first to show the full magnitude of Blake's mind."--The SpectatorTable of ContentsPART ONE - THE ARGUMENT 1. The Case against Locke 3 2. The Rising God 30 3. Beyond Good and Evil 55 4. A Literalist of the Imagination 85 5. The Word Within the Word 108 PART TWO - THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYMBOLISM 6. Tradition and Experiment 147 7. The Theif of Fire 187 8. The Refiner in Fire 227 9. The Nightmare with Her Ninefold 269 PART THREE - THE FINAL SYNTHESIS 10. Comus agonists 313 11. The City of God 356 12. The Burden of the Valley of Vision 404 GENERAL NOTE: BLAKE'S MYSTICISM 431 NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS 433 NOTES TO THE TEST 435 INDEX 451
£28.80
Oxford University Press Lady Susan The Watsons and Sanditon
Book SynopsisThe unfinished fictions collected here are the novels and other writing that Jane Austen did not publish, including works such as Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Jane Austen Lady Susan The Watsons Sanditon Opinions of Mansfield Park Opinions of Emma Plan of A Novel Verses Appendix Abbreviations Textual Notes Explanatory Notes
£6.99
Broadview Press Ltd Pride and Prejudice
Book SynopsisElizabeth Bennet is Austen’s most liberated and appealing heroine, and Pride and Prejudice has remained over most of the past two centuries Austen’s most popular novel. The story turns on the marriage prospects of the five daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and especially on Elizabeth’s prejudice against the proud and distant Fitzwilliam Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is a romantic comedy that has been read as conservative and feminist, reactionary and revolutionary, rooted in the time of its composition and deliberately timeless. Robert Irvine’s introduction sets the novel in the context of the literary and intellectual history of the period, dealing with such crucial background issues as class relations in Britain, female exclusion from property and power, and the impact of the French Revolution. The introduction and annotations have been expanded and updated for the new edition, and a new appendix of Austen’s juvenilia has been added.Trade Review“Robert P. Irvine’s new edition of Pride and Prejudice is a superb version of Austen’s most frequently taught novel. Broadview’s Austen editions have always been my go-to for the classroom due to their rich introductions and expansive critical apparatuses, and this edition is no exception. Irvine’s cogent and insightful introduction clarifies the novel’s contexts and intertexts for both students and scholars, but what really set this and Broadview’s other Austen editions apart are the excellence and depth of their appendices; this one includes contemporary reviews and judiciously chosen excerpts from conduct books and texts on domestic tourism, on the French Revolution, and on militia regiments, as well as selections from Austen’s letters and juvenilia, all of which richly contextualize Pride and Prejudice for twenty-first-century readers. This edition will be a valuable resource for Austen scholars at all levels, perhaps especially for students who approach the novel with limited knowledge of the period.” — Suzanne L. Barnett, Manhattan College“This is my new go-to edition of Pride and Prejudice. Robert Irvine’s introduction usefully elucidates the social, political, and literary contexts of the novel, and his illuminating explanatory notes are indispensable for today’s student. As with all Broadview Editions, a range of supplementary materials offers productive frameworks for teaching the novel and will benefit both new and veteran readers of Austen.” — Mary-Catherine Harrison, University of Detroit MercyTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Jane Austen and Her Time: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Text Map Pride and Prejudice Appendix A: From the Juvenilia (1792–93) 1. From Volume the First: “The Three Sisters” 2. From Volume the Second: “From a young Lady in distress’d Circumstances to her freind” Appendix B: From Austen’s Letters to Her Sister Cassandra 1. To Cassandra Austen, 8–9 January 1799 2. To Cassandra Austen, 11 June 1799 3. To Cassandra Austen, 29 January 1813 4. To Cassandra Austen, 4 February 1813 Appendix C: Contemporary Periodical Reviews of Pride and Prejudice 1. British Critic (February 1813) 2. From Critical Review (March 1813) Appendix D: From the Conduct Books 1. From James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women (1766) 2. From Dr. John Gregory, A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters (1774) Appendix E: Domestic Tourism 1. From William Watts, The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry (1779) 2. From William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1777) Appendix F: Burke on the French Revolution1. From Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)Appendix G: Discussion of Women’s Role after the French Revolution 1. From Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 2. From Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799) Appendix H: The Militia Regiments on the South Coast of England in 1793–95 1. Women at the Brighton Camp, from The Sussex Weekly Advertiser (1793, 1795) 2. The Mutiny of the Oxfordshire Militia, from The Sussex Weekly Advertiser (1795) Works Cited and Select Bibliography
£12.95
CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD The Connell Guide To Jane Austen's Pride and
Book Synopsis
£8.54
Oxford University Press The Dukes Children Complete
Book SynopsisThe Duke's Children is a novel about sorrow and loss, and about a parent s pained discovery that our children inevitably grow to love us less than we love them.Trade Review[The Duke's Children], edited by the American scholar Steven Amarnick, now appears in paperback, as an Oxford World's Classic. At long last, all the children of The Duke's Children are fully born. [...] Entombed for more than a century, the extended, original "Duke's Children" arrives as a stroke of good fortune. The inclusion of 65,000 additional words allows for a statelier pace, a suitable spaciousness wherein a headstrong Plantagenet can reconcile himself to the invincible unreason of young love. * Brad Leithauser, Wall Street Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography Note on the Text Chronology The Duke's Children Explanatory Notes Name Index
£11.69
Oxford University Press George Eliot
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Oxford University Press Emma Oxford Worlds Classics
Book SynopsisEmma is considered by many to be Austen's finest and most representative novel. The story of Emma Woodhouse's matchmaking, and her awakening to the true feelings of others as well as herself, is told with consummate wit and humour.Table of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography A Chronology of Jane Austen EMMA Explanatory Notes
£6.99
Troubador Publishing Facets of Wuthering Heights: Selected Essays
Book SynopsisFacets of Wuthering Heights is a collection of essays by one author concerned to throw critical light on several different facets of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights. Although three of the essays deal partly with the historical background to the novel, the collection as a whole seeks to draw attention to Emily Brontë’s remarkable versatility as a novelist by, for example, implicitly pointing up the skill with which she has constructed the plot, the inventiveness with which she has created an astonishing variety of characters, and the brilliance with which she has made structural use of her central themes. This book is intended to encourage readers to take a fresh look at Wuthering Heights as a work of art which, far from deserving to be read merely for its extraordinary treatment of love, is, in fact, eminently notable for its author’s objective and dispassionate portrayal of a particular society and a particular set of individuals in late eighteenth-century England and beyond.
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Hardy Women
Book SynopsisA TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER''He understands only the women he invents the others not at all''Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women?In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy's life through the eyes of the women who made him mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women's lives in the nineteenth century.Hardy Women is the story of how the magnificent fictional women he invented would not have been possible without the hardship and hardiness of the real ones who Trade Review EARLY PRAISE FOR HARDY WOMEN ‘Absorbing… a treat for Hardy fans and unhappy wives’ The Times ‘Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy created some of literature’s most enduring female characters . . . but it is the real women who shaped the life of the tortured genius that a book vividly reanimates’ Independent 'By turns infuriating and inspiring, but always fascinating, this page-turner of a book offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of Victorian Britain’s most famous writers' Gareth Russell, author of The Palace ‘A fascinating re-examination of the life of Thomas Hardy through the eyes of the women who profoundly influenced him-his mother, his sisters, girlfriends, wives and muses. Drawing on access to some neverbefore-seen passages in Hardy's journals, she shows that it is through these hardy women that we can truly appreciate his much-loved works’ The Bookseller, Editor’s Choice
£22.50
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A New Jane Austen
Book SynopsisCompleting Juliette Wells' groundbreaking trio of books on Austen's readers, this latest volume revolutionizes our understanding of how Austen came to be viewed as the world's greatest novelist. Wells shows that Austen's global reputation was established not by British scholars, as is commonly believed, but by visionary American writers and collectors, working largely outside academia.Drawing on extensive research, Wells weaves together colorful, compelling case studies of men and women who, from the 1880s to the 1980s, helped readers appreciate Austen's novels, persuasively advocated for her place in the literary canon, and preserved artifacts vital to her legacy.Engagingly written and abundantly illustrated, A New Jane Austen will inform and delight scholars and Austen fans alike.Trade ReviewWells's recovery and championship of these American enthusiasts is descriptive, laudatory and accessible in style ... She gives space and a second hearing to voices and approaches whose love for all things Austen, she believes, has much to teach us. * Times Literary Supplement *If you thought you knew how Jane Austen came to be viewed as the world’s greatest novelist, think again. Wells’s meticulously researched and beautifully written book introduces a fascinating group of individuals whose contributions to Austen studies have long been obscure. After reading this book, I came to care as much about Alberta Burke and Oscar Fay Adams as I do about many of Austen’s characters. -- Professor Jennie Batchelor, University of Kent, UKAn insightful, illuminating and meticulously researched book. Wells animates her subjects with skill, energy and affection in a study that significantly deepens our understanding of early Austen experts and enthusiasts and their contribution to the field. * Lizzie Dunford, Director, Jane Austen's House, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Austen for Americans, and for the world: Oscar Fay Adams, critical editor and biographer Chapter 2: Canonizing “the giant Jane”: William Dean Howells, interpreter and advocate Chapter 3: Topaz crosses plus treasures of another kind: Charles Beecher Hogan, collector and keeper of reading journals Chapter 4: A labor of love and friendship: Alberta H. Burke, Averil G. Hassall, and the building of a transatlantic Austen archive Afterword: Jane Austen Anew Bibliography
£17.09
Oxford University Press Conversations with Dostoevsky
Book SynopsisConversations with Dostoevsky presents a series of fictional conversations taking place between November 2018 and Spring 2019 in the narrator''s Glasgow apartment and elsewhere in the city. At the beginning of the conversations, the narrator has been reading Dostoevsky''s story A Gentle Spirit, which concludes with a dramatic statement of protest atheism. This statement suggests that love is not possible in a purely mechanical universe in which all living beings are condemned to death and ultimate extinction. The conversations spell out Dostoevsky''s response to this view and his advocacy of faith in God, Christ, and immortality. The themes discussed include suicide, truth and lies, guilt, determinism, literature, the Bible, Mary, Christ, Dostoevsky and film, ''the woman question'', nationalism, war, the Church, the Jewish question, immortality, and God. In addition to conversations between the narrator and Dostoevsky, we drop in on a dinner party at which Dostoevsky is discussed from
£28.50
Simon & Schuster Ltd In Byrons Wake
Book Synopsis A Sunday Times Book of the Year'This magnificent, highly readable double biography...brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life' The Financial Times'A gripping saga of a double-biography' Daily Mail'A masterful portrait' The Times'Vastly enjoyable' Literary Review'Deeply absorbing and meticulously researched' The Oldie In 1815, the clever, courted and cherished Annabella Milbanke married the notorious and brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet. Ada didn't. Brought up by aTrade Review‘A masterful portrait…Miranda Seymour is a marvellous storyteller…it is composed to a considerable extent of scandal, gossip and bad blood, Seymour’s book is hugely entertaining as well as formidably researched, and should not be missed’ -- John Carey * The Sunday Times *‘It was…her brilliance as a scientific and mathematical pioneer that defined Ada…Struggling against her mother’s domineering influence and the sexism of 19th Century England…she also found herself in competition for Annabella’s attention with Medora, Augusta’s daughter and rumoured Byronic bastard.’ -- Alexander Larman * The Times *‘Vastly enjoyable…it is one of the many pleasures of this book that Seymour makes the reader warm to their inconsistencies, to all the inexplicable oppositions of character and action that make them so familiar and human…Brilliant, ebullient, eccentric, vivacious, egocentric and oddly dressed, Ada had her mother’s discipline and her father’s volatility.’ -- Lucy Lethbridge * Literary Review *'As Miranda Seymour writes in this gripping saga of a double-biography…the pretty 20-year-old Annabella Milbanke… [who] fell head over heels in love with mad, bad and dangerous Lord Byron…a serial womaniser who referred to sexual encounters as "hot luncheons"…"her heart was obstinately set upon the reformation of a rake".' -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail, Book of the Week *'Miranda Seymour is…subtle, astute and experienced an historian…and her zestful prose keeps the reader engaged throughout…in this deeply absorbing and meticulously researched biography of Byron’s wife and daughter.' -- Rupert Christiansen * The Oldie *'It’s more than 160 years since the death of the computer pioneer Ada Lovelace…credited with everything from the invention of the CD to the foundation of Silicon Valley. Miranda Seymour agrees that it is not Ada Lovelace’s skills as a mathematician that matter, but rather her visionary words, 100 years before the birth of electronic computers, about "a new, a vast and a powerful language". In her ambitious...dual biography of Ada and her mother Lady Byron, the power of Lovelace’s imagination and her belief in a "poetry of mathematics" is seen as a direct inheritance from Ada’s father Lord Byron.' -- Mark Bostridge * The Spectator *'There are difficult men, and then there is Lord Byron…the aim of Miranda Seymour’s new book is to put Byron’s wife, Annabella Milbanke, and their increasingly famous daughter, Ada Lovelace, centre stage… Not only were his wife and child still dealing with the rumours of cruelty, incest and sodomy – a then illegal activity which, Seymour…a wonderful writer… speculates, his young wife may have enjoyed – long after his death in 1824; they remained, in emotionally complex ways, in his thrall all their lives.' -- Rachel Cooke * The Observer, Book of the Day *'On BBC4 she was celebrated as "Calculating Ada, the Countess of Computing"…writing about Babbage’s Analytical Engine, whose potential she was the only one to realise…in her extraordinarily prophetic "Notes"…As for Ada’s mother… Annabella Milbanke was married only a year before she left Byron, and he left the country…Miranda Seymour puts everything straight in this magnificent, highly readable double biography, which brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life…In Seymour’s hands, Annabella’s pioneering work…at last assumes the status it deserves. Her humanity shines through…Ada’s own short life was colourful, chaotic and bedevilled by illness…This is a very fine book. Written with warmth, panache and conviction, its formidable research is lightly worn.' -- Sue Gaisford * The Financial Times *‘The story of this unhappy trio has been told before, but seldom with as much brio as it is here. Miranda Seymour’s particular aim is to rescue Annabella from over a century’s worth of bad press… Only now, in Seymour’s careful hands, is she finally allowed to emerge as a figure who was neither saint nor sinner but somewhere in between.’ -- Kathryn Hughes * The Guardian *‘A seasoned biographer, [Miranda Seymour] brings her considerable powers to the lives of the human jetsam…left to sink or swim in Byron’s wake.' * Weekend Australian *‘A nuanced account, attuned to contemporary preoccupations...Goethe thought the spectacle of the Byrons’ marriage "so poetical that if Lord Byron had invented it, he would hardly have had a more fortunate subject for his genius." Seymour’s account...shows that it has lost none of its power to enthrall.’ * Daily Telegraph *‘Deft and compelling… The late Georgians invented the cult of celebrity and Byron was its first and finest creation. His wife and daughter could not escape fame, they could hope only to avoid notoriety. Annabella’s attempts to preserve her reputation and other people’s attempts to salvage Byron’s have left a pall of smoke from burning letters and diaries, further obscuring the facts that remain. Seymour carries off a delicate balancing act, combining the historian’s proper caution with acute judgements and a dashing narrative pace.’ -- Rosemary Hill * London Review of Books *‘Seymour manages to offer a supremely even-handed and well-evidenced account of the relationship without losing any of the juicier details (Byron’s affair and possible daughter with his half-sister; his predilection for sodomy; his seeming derangement in the face of wedlock)…one of the many strengths of Seymour’s study is its illustration of these accomplished women’s lives apart from the man who deserted them. Seymour is a master of character, and here she gives us two ferociously intelligent women who were deeply ambivalent about motherhood and their place in the male-dominated fields they inhabited.’ -- Corin Throsby * TLS *‘Meticulously researched…A skilled and experienced biographer, Seymour weaves her way through cobwebby curtains of rumor and gossip…The combination of pure mathematics and agonized personal passions gives Seymour’s book an arresting power’ -- Jenny Uglow * New York Review of Books *‘Miranda Seymour joins the dots with a wonderful account of the life of Ada’s mother, Annabella Milbanke, a society heiress and education reformer who outlived both husband and daughter. This double biography…is a scholarly treatment of sensational material, and it’s often as gripping as a soap opera’ * Sunday Times Books of the Year *‘A skilful account of Lord Byron’s disastrous marriage to the heiress Annabella Milbanke…and then on their daughter, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, computing pioneer, who descended into drugs and debt’ * Daily Telegraph *
£11.69
Yale University Press Dress in the Age of Jane Austen
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Combining meticulous scholarship and intellectual heft with an engaging, approachable style is one of the most difficult writing tasks there is, but Davidson makes it seem effortless, using the life, the letters and the novels of Austen as an entry point into her exploration of clothing, its modes of production, its aesthetics, and its social meaning.”—Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald“Dress in the Age of Jane Austen is an exemplary model of how to read historical dress—the objects themselves and their presentation in text and images—that was well worth the wait.”—Michele Majer, Costume“[The author] gives fascinating insights into Austen’s appearance and also her attitudes to fashion.”—Matthew Westwood, The Australian“What Davidson generously presents her reader with . . . is a systemic primer of Regency fashion, using Austen’s works and her context as a starting-off point and as the object that the analysis explicates.”—Denise Baxter, Journal of Modern History“Davidson treats historical garments as material objects open to interpretation, helping scholars and fans alike add to the traditional Austen archive by turning textile to text.”—Elyse Martin, Perspectives on History“In a remarkable new book, the textile historian Hilary Davidson uses Austen’s writing as a lens through which to explore the evolving fashions of the Regency period at every level of society. Glorious full-colour illustrations of costumes ranging from linen bodices to silk pantaloons are stitched together with contextual observations to create a comprehensive portrait of late-18th-century life.”—Town & Country UK“Dress in the Age of Jane Austen gives us a detailed and comprehensive analysis of Regency fashion and is to be much welcomed as a single volume survey. . . . The book is beautifully illustrated with thoughtfully chosen, and often unusual or unfamiliar images. . . . For dress historians this book sets a scholarly and inspiring example, which is bound to remain a standard work of reference for this period.”—Penelope Byrd, Journal of Dress HistoryCHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2020
£28.50
Oxford University Press Orley Farm
Book SynopsisThere was a power of endurance about her, and a courage that was almost awful.Did Lady Mason forge a codicil to her husband''s will, allowing Orley Farm to pass to her son or not? Orley Farm centres on this case of forgery, and the anguish and guilt of Lady Mason. Surrounding this enigmatic woman and her apparent crime are her elderly lover, Sir Peregrine Orme; her principled but thoughtless son, Lucius; and, not least, a group of determined lawyers. Orley Farm contains the plot with which Trollope was most pleased. Drawing on family experience of the loss of an inheritance, the novel tackles the tremendous question of property fraud. The result, as George Orwell observed, is one of the most brilliant novels about a law suit in English fiction. Orley Farm dates from a confident period of its authorâs life. It breathes an air of writerly assurance, with Trollope at the height of his competitiveness with Dickens. In this work Trollope claims the Victorian legal novel as his own.Table of ContentsBiographical Preface Introduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Anthony Trollope ORLEY FARM Appendix 1: Dates in the Novel Appendix 2: Anthony Trollope Cross-Examined in the Kerry Summer Assizes Explanatory Notes
£12.34
Oxford University Press The Wild Asss Skin
Book Synopsis''Who possesses me will possess all things,But his life will belong to me...''Raphael de Valentin, a young aristocrat, has lost all his money in the gaming parlours of the Palais Royal in Paris, and contemplates ending his life by throwing himself into the Seine. He is distracted by the bizarre array of objects in a chaotic antique shop, among them a strange animal skin, a piece of shagreen with magical properties. It will grant its possessor his every wish, but each time a wish is bestowed the skin shrinks, hastening its owner''s death. Around this fantastic premise Balzac weaves a compelling psychological portrait of his hero, a prisoner of his own Promethean imagination, and explores profound ideas about the human will, vice and virtue, love and death. Helen Constantine''s new translation captures the energy and exuberance of Balzac''s novel, one of the most engaging of his ''Études philosophiques'' from the Comédie humaine. The accompanying introduction and notes offer fresh insights into this remarkable work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewThe novel has been elegantly translated by Helen Constantine, who is both faithful and creative * Nicholas White, Times Literary Supplement *A model of its kind * Nineteenth-Century French Studies *
£11.69
Oxford University Press The SketchBook of Geoffrey Crayon Gent.
Book SynopsisIn The Sketch-Book Washington Irving explores the uneasy relationship of an American writer to English literary traditions. He sketches a series of encounters with the cultural shrines of the parent nation, and in two brilliant experiments with tales transplanted from Europe creates the first classic American short stories, `Rip Van Winkle' and `The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow'.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Dr Wortles School Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisMr Peacocke, a Classical scholar, has come to Broughtonshire with his beautiful American wife to live as a schoolmaster. But when the blackmailing brother of her American first husband appears at the school gates, their dreadful secret is revealed, and the county is scandalized. In the character of Dr Wortle, the combative but warm-hearted headmaster, who takes the couple's part in the face of general ostracism, there is an element of self-portrait. There are echoes, too, in Wortle's gallantry to Mrs Peacocke, of Trollope's own attachment to the vivacious Bostonian, Kate Field.With its scathing depiction of American manhood, its jousting with convention and its amiable, egotistical protagonist, Dr Wortle's School(1879) is one of the sharpest and most engaging of Trollope's later novels.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a
£10.44
Oxford University Press The Golden Bough
Book SynopsisA classic study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind, and the progress through magic and religion to scientific thought, The Golden Bough has a unique status in modern anthropology and literature. First published in 1890, The Golden Bough was eventually issued in a twelve-volume edition (1906-15) which was abridged in 1922 by the author and his wife. That abridgement has never been reconsidered for a modern audience. In it some of the more controversial passages were dropped, including Frazer''s daring speculations on the Crucifixion of Christ. For the first time this one-volume edition restores Frazer''s bolder theories and sets them within the framework of a valuable introduction and notes. A seminal work of modern anthropolgy, The Golden Bough also influenced many twentieth-century writers, including D H Lawrence, T S Eliot, and Wyndham Lewis. Its discussion of magical types, the sacrificial killing of kings, the dying god, and the scapegoat is given fresh pertinence in this new edition. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
£14.24
Oxford University Press Jane Austens Letters
Book SynopsisJane Austen''s letters afford a unique insight into the daily life of the novelist: intimate and gossipy, observant and informative, they bring alive her family and friends, her surroundings and contemporary events with a freshness unparalleled in biography. Above all we recognize the unmistakable voice of the author of Pride and Prejudice, witty and amusing as she describes the social life of town and country, thoughtful and constructive when writing about the business of literary composition. R. W. Chapman''s ground-breaking edition of the collected Letters first appeared in 1932, and a second edition followed twenty years later. A third edition, edited by Deidre Le Faye in 1997, added new material, re-ordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence, and provided discreet and full annotation to each letter, including its provenance, and information on the watermarks, postmarks, and other physical details of the manuscripts. This fourth edition incorporates the findings of new scholarship to enrich our understanding of Austen and give us the fullest and most revealing view yet of her life and family. There is a new preface, the biographical and topographical indexes have been amended and updated, a new subject index has been created, and the contents of the notes added to the general index.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition Review from previous edition Deidre Le Faye's new edition is necessary and very welcome; no one was better qualified, no one could have done it so well. * Independent on Sunday *We waited a long time for the new edition. It was well worth the wait. * Jane Austen Society of North America *for those who are starting to get the novels confused with the films, here is a chance to enjoy their beloved Jane at her most direct ... a generous and comprehensive book * Max Davidson, The Daily Telegraph *Most will enjoy reading Austen unbuttoned, in an unfussy and intelligently edited volume. * Sam Leith, The Observer *Le Faye re-orders the letters chronologically and provides useful background information. She also includes previously unpublished material. * The Express *Wiht little else to fill that ordinary life, Jane had plenty of time to write letters. They were witty, intimate and gossipy and brought alive her contemporaries and their surroundings. More than 160 are collected here, annotated and placed in chronological order. * Oxford Times *it is possible to appreciate Le Faye's edition for what it offers to readers both casual and academic. Most importantly, this is a highly readable text. ... Carefully detailed notes, biographical and topographical indexes, and bibliographical information about primary and secondary sources all contribute to the reader's sense that Le Faye's professional thoroughness has indeed made accessible 'the daily business' of Austen's world. * RES New Series, vol.XLVIII, No.190, 1997 *These are the letters of our greatest novelist ... they give glances and hints at her life from the age of 20 to her death at 41, the years in which she wrote her six imperishable books * Claire Tomalin, Independent on Sunday *[a] landmark collection ... Le Faye's work combines a meticulous compilation of data about the physical attributes and indexes that allow us to read over Austen's shoulder as she shares everyday news and frank opinions with family and friends. * Newsletter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Volume 28: Issue Number 2 *For someone fairly new to Austen studies, who knows the novels and even the minor works but who is yet to immerse themselves in these tender, touching, entertaining products of their author's mind, there could be no better gift. * The Newsletter of the Jane Austen Society, no. 38 *Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION; LIST OF LETTERS; JANE AUSTEN'S LETTERS; ABBREVIATIONS AND CITATIONS; NOTES; GENERAL NOTES ON THE LETTERS; BIBLIOGRAPHY; BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX; TOPOGRAPHICAL INDEX; SUBJECT INDEX; GENERAL INDEX
£22.49
Pearson Education Hard Times York Notes Advanced everything you
Book SynopsisYork Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.Table of Contents Study methods Introduction to the text Summaries with critical notes Themes and techniques Textual analysis of key passages Author biography Historical and literary background Modern and historical critical approaches Chronology Glossary of literary terms
£7.99
Harvard University Press The Gardens of Emily Dickinson
Book SynopsisIn this first substantial study of Emily Dickinson's devotion to flowers and gardening, Farr seeks to join both poet and gardener in one creative personality, casting new light on Dickinson's temperament, aesthetic sensibility, and vision of the relationship between art and nature.Trade ReviewIn this first major study of our beloved poet Dickinson's devotion to gardening, Farr shows us that like poetry, gardening was her daily passion, her spiritual sustenance, and her literary inspiration...Rather than speaking generally about Dickinson's gardening habits, as other articles on the subject have done, Farr immerses the reader in a stimulating and detailed discussion of the flowers Dickinson grew, collected, and eulogized...The result is an intimate study of Dickinson that invites readers to imagine the floral landscapes that she saw, both in and out of doors, and to re-create those landscapes by growing the same flowers (the final chapter is chock-full of practical gardening tips). -- Maria Kochis * Library Journal *This is a beautiful book on heavy white paper with rich reproductions of Emily Dickinson's favorite flowers, including sheets from the herbarium she kept as a young girl. But which came first, the flowers or the poems? So intertwined are Dickinson's verses with her life in flowers that they seem to be the lens through which she saw the world. In her day (1830-86), many people spoke 'the language of flowers.' Judith Farr shows how closely the poet linked certain flowers with her few and beloved friends: jasmine with editor Samuel Bowles, Crown Imperial with Susan Gilbert, heliotrope with Judge Otis Lord and day lilies with her image of herself. The Belle of Amherst, Mass., spent most of her life on 14 acres behind her father's house on Main Street. Her gardens were full of scented flowers and blossoming trees. She sent notes with nosegays and bouquets to neighbors instead of appearing in the flesh. Flowers were her messengers. Resisting digressions into the world of Dickinson scholarship, Farr stays true to her purpose, even offering a guide to the flowers the poet grew and how to replicate her gardens. -- Susan Salter Reynolds * Los Angeles Times *If you want poetry and gardening of equal merit, turn to Emily Dickinson, whose gardens--poetic and herbaceous--are the subject of an attractive new book, The Gardens of Emily Dickinson, by Judith Farr. It includes a chapter on 'Gardening with Emily Dickinson' by Louise Carter. This book catches a constant tension in Dickinson's life. An interesting, skillful gardener, she had a strong literal regard for the immediate world in which she gardened. And yet the garden in her poems is never just her garden. Nature serves her visionary passion. A dandelion demonstrates how 'Winter instantly becomes/An infinite Alas.' I suspect that as she passed among her flowers in Amherst they evaporated into the symbolic ether behind her. And yet, as Farr notes, Emily Dickinson had strong gardener's hands. -- Verlyn Klinkenborg * New York Times Book Review *Farr...shows that Dickinson's use of flower imagery drew on first-hand experience in the garden and conservatory. She was a passionate gardener, 'able to envision every season and flower at will,' Farr writes, her gardening, like her poetry, 'the manifestation of profound and even occasionally rebellious desire.'...For bringing us so close to Emily Dickinson--one can almost hear her breathing--The Gardens of Emily Dickinson deserves wide readership. -- Tom D'Evelyn * Providence Journal *The reclusive poet's garden, conservatory and the nearby woods were intimate theaters, entwined with her identity, requisite to her survival and her primary inspiration. Plants and flowers had souls and spoke to her; their lives and deaths were mystical events. In them, she found metaphors for beauty, truth, heaven and earth, and she wove them into poems she called 'blossoms of the Brain.' Dickinson scholar Judith Farr unravels the symbolism in Dickinson's spare sensuous poetry and explores the influences of family, friends and Victorian culture on her work. The final chapter, by horticulturalist Louise Carter, describes plants surely and most likely grown by Dickinson, along with their care. (She loved heavily scented flowers and described herself as a 'Lunatic on Bulbs.') An engrossing read, illustrated with paintings, photographs and other images from the era. -- Lili Singer * Los Angeles Times *Farr claims Dickinson was better known in her lifetime as a skilled gardener than as a poet. She grew native plants and more exotic imports, and she botanised in the woodlands and pastures surrounding her home. This is, of course, no news to Dickinson scholars, but the point cannot be stressed too often. Farr makes it emphatically by bringing together a wealth of material about Dickinson's engagement with flowers. Her book, which is full of close readings, is likely to become the standard work on the subject. As Farr shows, Dickinson's gardening and writing were intertwined enterprises, which both required a great deal of care. -- Madeleine Minson * Times Higher Education Supplement *For the serious Dickinson lover, get The Gardens of Emily Dickinson by Judith Farr, an engrossing and serious biography with deep analysis of the floral themes in the poems. -- Carol Stocker * Boston Globe *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Gardening in Eden 2. The Woodland Garden 3. The Enclosed Garden 4. The "Garden in the Brain" 5. Gardening with Emily Dickinson Louise Carter Epilogue: The Gardener in Her Seasons Appendix: Flowers and Plants Grown by Emily Dickinson Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index of Poems Cited Index
£24.26
Faber & Faber The Intellectuals and the Masses Pride and
Book SynopsisProfessor John Carey shows how early twentieth-century intellectuals imagined the ''masses'' as semi-human swarms, drugged by popular newspapers and cinema, and ripe for extermination. Exposing the revulsion from common humanity in George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, W. B. Yeats and other canonized writers, he relates this to the cult of the Nietzschean Superman, which found its ultimate exponent in Hitler.Carey''s assault on the founders of modern culture caused consternation throughout the artistic and academic establishments when it was first published in 1992.
£10.44
Oxford University Press Mathilda
Book Synopsis''I am in a strange state of mind. I am alonequite alonein the worldthe blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happyjoyous''The eponymous heroine of Mathilda narrates a tale of incestuous love from her deathbed. Her father''s suicide by drowning, and her relationship with a gifted young poet, both contribute to her emotional withdrawal and lonely demise. This edition of Shelley''s second novel, transcribed and introduced by Deanna Koretsky, explores the work both as a complex portrayal of taboo desires and as an intergenerational story of reckoning with the horrors of racism and patriarchy. Mathilda is often read as biographical, but this edition also highlights the issues of justice, gender, and rights. Illuminating Shelley''s evolving views on activism and social reform, sexual fluidity, and the racial implications of her feminist politics, Koretsky uncovers Shelley''s deep skepticism about the capacity of English society to
£7.59
HarperCollins Publishers Shelley
Book SynopsisA fantastic reissue of Richard Holmes' epic biography of this most enigmatic and intriguing of the Romantic poets. This is simply one of the greatest biographical achievements of recent years.Shelley, the most neglected of all the great Romantic poets, was born in Sussex in 1792 and died in Tuscany in 1822, a brief life packed with love affairs, alarums and excursions. Holmes's book offers a serious and critical reappraisal of Shelley as a man and a writer; all his prose and poetry is carefully re-examined, his sense of spiritual and geographical isolation brilliantly described and a detailed portrait of his macabre imaginative life slowly assembled.Shelley's intense friendships with some of the most remarkable figures of his age fill Holmes's pages with a vivid parorama of revolutionary idealism and recklessness. To this is added the private story of Shelley's tortuous romantic liaisons, complications which affected both the peculiar tenor of his daily life and the remotest conceptionTrade Review‘If the art of biography was ever damned, “Shelley: The Pursuit” redeemed it.’ New York Times ‘The best biography of Shelley ever written. The great emphasis that Mr. Holmes lays on Shelley’s politics, philosophy and social activities corrects the usual view of an extraordinarily idealised, ethereal, spiritualized kind of poetry combined with an extraordinarily incoherent life. He has taken the Shelley story out of the realm of myth and made it far more convincing and significant.’ Sir Stephen Spender ‘An unquestionably great biography which banished forever the image of the poet as an ineffectual angel.’ Independent on Sunday
£17.99
HarperCollins Publishers The Awakening
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
£5.05
HarperCollins Publishers Sense and Sensibility Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.''Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward''s manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat.''Spirited and impulsive, Marianne Dashwood is the complete opposite to her controlled and sensible sister, Elinor. When it comes to matters of the heart, Marianne is passionate and romantic and soon falls for the charming, but unreliable Mr Willoughby. Elinor, in contrast, copes stoically with the news that her love, Edward Ferrars is promised to another.It is through their shared experiences of love that both sisters come to learn that the key to a successful match comes from finding the perfect mixture of rationality and feeling.
£5.62
Random House USA Inc Mansfield Park
Book SynopsisMansfield Park is the complex and controversial novel starring Fanny Price, the heroine through which the world-renowned author of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility views the social mores of her day and contemplates human nature itself.Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values.—Virginia WoolfMansfield Park encompasses not only Jane Austen’s great comedic gifts and her genius as a historian of the human animal, but her personal credo as well—her faith in a social order that combats chaos through civil grace, decency, and wit. At the novel’s center is Fanny Price, the classic “poor cousin,” brought as a child to Mansfield Park by the rich Sir Thomas Bertram and his wife as an act of charity. Over time, Fanny comes to demonstrate forcibly those virtues Austen most admired: modesty, firm principles, and a loving heart. As Fanny watches her cousi
£10.44
Oxford University Press Devils
Book SynopsisDevils, also known in English as The Possessed and The Demons, was first published in 1871-2. The third of Dostoevsky''s five major novels, it is at once a powerful political tract and a profound study of atheism, depicting the disarray which follows the appearance of a band of modish radicals in a small provincial town. Dostoevsky compares infectious radicalism to the devils that drove the Gadarene swine over the precipice in his vision of a society possessed by demonic creatures that produce devastating delusions of rationality.Dostoevsky is at his most imaginatively humorous in Devils: the novel is full of buffoonery and grotesque comedy. The plot is loosely based on the details of a notorious case of political murder, but Dostoevsky weaves suicide, rape, and a multiplicity of scandals into a compelling story of political evil. _ This new translation also includes the chapter `Stavrogin''s Confession'', which was initially considered to be too shocking to print. In this edition it appears where the author originally intended it. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. _ _
£10.44
Oxford University Press An Autobiography
Book Synopsis''I hated the office. I hated my work...the only career in life within my reach was that of an author.''The only autobiography by a major Victorian novelist, Trollope''s account offers a fascinating insight into his literary life and opinions. After a miserable childhood and misspent youth, Trollope turned his life around at the age of twenty-six. By 1860 the ''hobbledehoy'' had become both a senior civil servant and a best-selling novelist. He worked for the Post Office for many years and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament. Best-known for the two series of novels grouped loosely around the clerical and political professions, the Barsetshire and Palliser series, in his Autobiography Trollope frankly describes his writing habits. His apparent preoccupation with contracts, deadlines, and earnings, and his account of the remorseless regularity with which he produced his daily quota of words, has divided opinion ever since. This edition reassesses the work''s distinctive qualities and incTrade ReviewTrollope is one of my favourite authors & his autobiography is a portrait of a lovable man who survived a miserable childhood & created a happy life for himself, both personally & professionally as a novelist. * I Prefer Reading *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION; NOTE ON THE TEXT; CHRONOLOGY; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY; TROLLOPE ON JANE AUSTEN; 'ON ENGLISH PROSE FICTION AS A RATIONAL AMUSEMENT'; FROM THACKERAY; FROM 'THE GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE; FROM 'A WALK IN THE WOOD'; APPENDIX: PASSAGES OMITTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT; EXPLANATORY NOTES; INDEX
£10.44
Oxford University Press Selected Poetry
Book SynopsisThomas Hardy (1840-1928) remains one of the best loved of the great English poets. Hardy thought of himself as a poet all his life, although his poetic career only flowered after he had retired from novel-writing in his mid-fifties. Over the next thirty years he wrote the poems that have established him as one of the great and most enduringly popular English poets of the twentieth century. His verse touches all the common themes of human existence: birth, childhood, love, marriage, ageing, death. If Hardy''s age brings anything to them, it is an old man''s ironic and elegiac sense that in life hopes are likely to be defeated and losses sustained, and that the world was not designed for human happiness. This collection is prepared by Samuel Hynes, editor of the Oxford English Texts edition of The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, and selected from the Oxford Authors critical edition. The introduction and notes illuminate Hardy''s central place in the tradition of English poetry. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review'There is no more trusted name when it comes to the work of the great British poets than that of Oxford University Press. If you want the collected works, fully annotated and with scholarly editing then it's OUP you look to ... a series of elegant paperback volumes, each dedicated to a single poet, and with an introduction by an acknowledged expert.' David Thomas, Oxford Times'the selections are excellent, and the books real value for money' Robert Nye, The TimesTable of ContentsWessex Poems ; Poems of the Past and the Present ; Time's Laughingstocks ; Satires of Circumstance ; Moments of Vision ; Late Lyrics and Earlier ; Human Shows ; Winter Words ; Uncollected Poems
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC John Ruskin An Illustrated Life of John Ruskin
Book SynopsisJohn Ruskin was one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. His study of art and architecture in Britain and Europe led him to consider of the conditions of the people who lived in his world, and his interests embraced social and political economy. His ideas propounded in books like Unto This Last had a profound effect: William Morris, Bernard Shaw and many other early socialists practised his teachings. It also shows where the effects of his teaching can be seen today, in green belts, town planning, smokeless zones, the Rent Restrictions Act and the National Trust.
£8.99
Oxford University Press Oxford Student Texts Songs of Innocence and
Book SynopsisOne of a series designed to provide a new, accessible approach to the works of great poets and playwrights. Each text includes general notes on the text; discussion of themes, issues and context; and suggestions for further reading.
£14.81
Hodder & Stoughton Letters to Alice
Book SynopsisAlice is an eighteen-year-old student and aspiring novelist with green spiky hair, a child of the modern age who recoils at the idea of reading Jane Austen. In a sequence of letters reminiscent of Jane Austen''s to her own neice, ''aunt'' Fay examines the rewards of such study. Not only is her correspondence a revealing tribute to a great writer - it is also an original and rewarding exploration of the craft of fiction itself.
£9.99
The University of Chicago Press Jane Austens Names
Book Synopsis
£21.00
Harvard University Press Playing in the Dark
Book SynopsisMorrison brings her genius to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a perspective sure to alter conventional notions about American literature.Trade ReviewThis is a major work by a major American author… It is an exuberant exercise, conducted by a writer in her prime who knows that her own work makes steady inroads on the unspeakable. -- Diane Middlebrook * Los Angeles Times *In Playing in the Dark, Morrison explores how the temptation to enslave others instead of embracing freedom has shaded our national literature, and how an acceptance of this truth will enable us to see that literature’s struggles and fears, and so better understand its exuberance… Her wisdom is to locate strength in what appears to be weakness. -- Jane Mendelsohn * Voice Literary Supplement *In this beautifully written, immensely quotable study, Morrison attempts to overturn pervasive critical agendas that ignore racial representations in white texts and thus impoverish literary studies… Morrison’s interest is not to designate texts as ‘racist’ but to read the ways that the ‘racial’ operates. -- Linda Krumholz * Signs *Morrison’s delivery of the distinguished Massey lectures at Harvard in 1990 showed off her prowess as critic, for she brings the indomitable spirit of her fiction to her feelings about literature. In Playing in the Dark, the published lectures, Morrison argues that a black, or Africanist, presence exists throughout the history of American literature, and its understanding is essential to any body of criticism. Identifying what she calls ‘the rhetoric of dread and desire,’ then tracing its manifestations through works by Poe, Cather and Hemingway, Morrison believes that to ignore the presence of race in literature is to rob fiction of its power… But the most telling test of any critical argument, at least for those of us who prefer passion to theory, is whether such speculation will send you back to primary sources. By the time I’d finished Playing in the Dark, the floor around me was littered with Huck Finn and James Baldwin and Faulkner. -- Gail Caldwell * Boston Globe *In three compact and skillful essays, Morrison explores and illumines the gaggle of literary devices—conceits, tropes, metaphors—that have been mostly unconsciously deployed by white writers to refract the rays of blackness through the prism of literary silence, repression or avoidance. Morrison ably applies her therapeutic textual intervention to make these rays visible and to imaginatively envision how an Africanist presence was essential in forming and extending an American national literature… [This is her] impressive debut as a critical intellectual. -- Michael Eric Dyson * Chicago Tribune *A brief and compelling dissection of U.S. fiction. -- Paul Skenazy * San Francisco Chronicle *[Her] thesis is an engaging one, and it becomes more so in a sequence of a few compressed but inspired readings of American works, Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. -- Mark Edmundson * Washington Post Book World *Table of Contents1. black matters 2. romancing the shadow 3. disturbing nurses and the kindness of sharks
£26.31
WW Norton & Co Leaves of Grass
Book SynopsisThis new annotated edition inlcudes "Live Oak, with Moss" and prose selections from "Democratic Vistas" and "Specimen Days". The text also presents a collection of Whitman's statements about his role as a poet taken from his notebooks, letters, conversations and newspaper articles.
£12.99
Oxford University Press A Memoir of Jane Austen
Book SynopsisThis unique edition brings together for the first time Austen-Leigh's memoir of his aunt Jane Austen, together with shorter recollections by James Edward's two sisters. It also includes Jane's brother Henry's two biographical accounts.Trade Reviewa must for lovers of Austen's work * Choice Magazine *A very good introduction by Kathryn Sutherland * Derwent May, the Times, *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd A Life in Letters
Book SynopsisFrom the teenager in provincial Russia in 1875 to his premature death in Germany in 1904, Chekhov wrote over 4,500 letters to a range of correspondents, including family and friends, his publisher and fellow writers - not to mention actresses. These letters tell the story of Chekhov''s life as a man and a writer and he emerges from them as a tough, generous, life-enhancing, and enigmatic character.
£16.14
