Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Books

Book SynopsisThe Seventy-Five Folios and Other Unpublished Manuscripts contain early versions of six episodes later included in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Discovered in 2018 and presented here for the first time in English, the folios reveal the autobiographical extent of Proust’s work and the “sacred moment” when his genius blossomed.Trade ReviewCan we read Proust’s epic today and not care to know how it came about? In these pages, hidden from public view for a whole century, we can almost feel how Proust spent a lifetime planning and writing his book, picking his way towards what would become his great contribution to humanity. -- André AcimanFor those interested in understanding Proust’s masterpiece in its social, historical, or autobiographical context, this book is indispensable…Even in these early sketches, his prose dazzles and thrills, by turns depicting recognition and wonder, sometimes overdone but always with the precise intelligence, meditation, and humor for which Proust is renowned. -- Claire Messud * Harper’s *For years, Proust scholars knew about the existence of early drafts of material that would later be revised and incorporated into In Search of Lost Time. Only recently, though, were those manuscripts rescued from private hands. That treasure trove is finally available in English…Proust really is magical. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *Fascinating…In these drafts, we see the emerging elements of the Recherche as through a glass darkly. -- Bernard Richards * The Telegraph *The translation by Sam Taylor is so accomplished that it is uncannily invisible. Many of the qualities of the finished work are present in these haunting drafts: the power of the remembered past, the floodtide of total recall, the poetry of distant memory, the exquisite observation of place, light, and season…If you delight in flickering recollections, glimpses and mirrors, hints and foreshadowings, this is, urgently, the book for you. -- Peter Davidson * Literary Review *Added to the importance of the folios in themselves are the depth and brilliance of the critical apparatus, the notes and commentary, that is, and the excellence of Taylor’s translation…The immense tapestry—or perhaps, instead, the complex and multilayered palimpsest Dyer presents through her magnificent scholarship and comprehensive knowledge—can only increase the sense of wonder at Proust’s achievement. All readers are in her debt. And in the translator’s, too. -- Vincent Kling * Translation Review *The fascinating, handwritten early drafts of Marcel Proust’s cycle In Search of Lost Time, discovered in 2018, come to life in Taylor’s resplendent translation…This is a magnificent addition to Proust’s oeuvre. * Publishers Weekly *The recent discovery of the long-lost, seventy-five-page first draft that blossomed into In Search of Lost Time was one of the great miracles of modern publishing. Sam Taylor’s magnificently deft and elegant English translation of that work is another. An indispensable read for Anglophone Proust lovers everywhere, The Seventy-Five Folios is a literary treasure in its own right. -- Caroline Weber, author of Proust’s DuchessThe publication last year of the now famous seventy-five pages was a major literary and scholarly event, the ‘lost’ pages in question shedding valuable light on both the conception and the compositional history of Proust’s novel. To have them now in translation is a real treat for English readers of Proust. Sam Taylor’s rendering is also a treat in its own right, exact and fully responsive to nuance and to the rhythms of what Proust himself called ‘the melody of the song beneath the words.’ -- Christopher Prendergast, author of Living and Dying with Marcel ProustReaders will fall for the Marcel Proust we discover here because he is so human, only just emerging from his grief, loving and attentive toward his family, loyal and generous. The smoke and mirrors surrounding the publication of Proust’s manuscripts is as nothing to the writing contained within. It was well worth waiting more than half a century to read. -- Antoine Compagnon * Le Figaro *One cannot help but feel a certain sadness when coming to the end of [The Seventy-Five Folios]. Reading them takes us on a journey of rediscovering the Recherche through the prism of its first version, which holds many more surprises in store for the reader. But it also brings back the enchantment of reading Proust for the first time. -- Marion Schmid * Times Literary Supplement *Other important unpublished texts are featured among the sketches gathered at the end of The Seventy-Five Folios…Since most of them are later versions, the path that led to In Search of Lost Time can be retraced step by step—and the intoxication arises from seeing objects, emotions, mannerisms migrating from one character to another, while the question of truth is woven through all of them. A book full of surprises. -- Bertrand Leclair * Le Monde des livres *Memories are reliable only insofar as they are creations. To understand this, one must simply read how Proust transformed a biscotte into a madeleine. -- Philippe Lançon * Charlie Hebdo *Written in 1908, at a time when Marcel Proust—dandy, translator, art critic—had completely abandoned the novel, these pages represent the matrix of In Search of Lost Time…This edition also contains other unpublished manuscripts, fragmentary but fascinating…A family album far less intimidating than the masterpiece itself, and one that leaves you with a longing to dive into that work, for the first time or the hundredth. -- Yves Jaeglé * Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France *A fascinating insight into the genesis of Marcel Proust’s work. -- Lucas Person * Marianne *‘A Search before the letter,’ writes Nathalie Mauriac Dyer, to whom we owe the admirable critical apparatus of this volume…as well as a fascinating commentary in which she explains the importance of this 1908 novel to the genesis of Proust’s later masterpiece. -- Nathalie Crom * Télérama *The reader immerses herself in these chapters, and their later reworkings, which are already steeped in the theme—sparked here by a biscotte rather than a madeleine dipped in tea—that will become the key to the entire work: reminiscence. -- Nelly Kaprièlian * Les Inrocks *This book takes us back to the time when that famous first line—‘For a long time I used to go to bed early’—did not yet exist and when In Search of Lost Time seemed little more than a whim…It is moving to see emblematic episodes from the future novel appearing here in the nudity of a first draft, even if the names of Balbec, Combray, Swann, and Guermantes did not yet exist either. -- Mathieu Lindon * Libération *The raw ingredients of that great adventure, one of the most important of the past century, are assembled here. -- Francine de Martinoir * La Croix *Nathalie Mauriac Dyer deserves praise for her edition of the Folios, as well as a fascinating commentary on their contents and their genealogy. The discovery of these texts, which were known about but assumed to be lost, was headline news. But what literary value did they contain? Not all unpublished manuscripts are worth reading…The Seventy-Five Folios, written in 1908, is hugely significant. -- Michel Schneider * Le Point *‘What was in those seventy-five folios? What qualities did they possess that made him write them? What flaws did they display that made him abandon them?’ asks Jean-Yves Tadié in the preface to this volume, brilliantly edited and annotated by Nathalie Mauriac Dyer, who describes those early texts as a ‘miniature Search.’ Everything here heralds the masterpiece to come. -- Jérôme Garcin * L’Obs *

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Book SynopsisAvant-Garde Post– follows seven Russophone poets as they reinvigorate leftist art in the wake of state socialism. Rejecting both the Putin regime—with its selective mobilizations of Soviet nostalgia—and Western discourses of liberal superiority, this circle is reviving class-based critique through experimental forms and global collaborations.Trade ReviewMarijeta Bozovic has written the definitive study of avant-garde poetry’s role in the leftist resistance movement that has long stood opposed to the Putin regime. Her command of twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry and politics is extraordinary. -- Marjorie Perloff, author of Infrathin: An Experiment in MicropoeticsAn informative introduction to two recent generations of aesthetically inventive Russian-language poets, whose works embrace both a politics of resistance to authoritarianism and agitation for social and economic liberation. Writing in the wake of Dragomoshchenko and Prigov, the radical poets at the center of this book are brilliant and necessary voices, who we need to hear all the more in this time of crisis for Russian culture. -- Charles Bernstein, author of Pitch of PoetryBrilliant and essential. With dazzling insights and vibrant, compelling prose, Bozovic captures the political-aesthetic energy, urgency, and vitality of post-Soviet radical poetics. Her account is at once a literary history of this new movement, a portrait of seven major poets, and a theorization of a new tendency in Russian poetics. It is not only the most important book on post-Soviet poetry, but also the best book I have read on post-Soviet Russia as such. At the same time, it makes a crucial contribution to broader debates about the possibilities for transformative, leftist art across the world. -- Jonathan Flatley, author of Affective Mapping: Melancholia and the Politics of ModernismAvant-Garde Post– is an incisive study of the most intriguing leftist poets working in and around Russia today. Informed by years of research in close contact and partnership with the authors themselves, Bozovic’s work explains how they have renovated traditions of engaged, experimental, and revolutionary culture for a new era. Her examination of these figures, who have worked in opposition to the Putin regime for decades, could not be more timely. -- Kevin M. F. Platt, author of Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths

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Book SynopsisShows how W H Auden can speak to us throughout life, suggesting how, despite difficulties and change, we can celebrate understanding, acceptance, and love for others.Trade Review"[T]he book comes alive when Smith connects his own moral and intellectual growth to his appreciation of the poet... Anyone interested in the intellectual underpinnings of Smith's warm and humane novels should read this book, which would also make a good introduction to Auden for serious younger readers."--Regina Marler, New York Times Book Review "Poets need readers who aren't poets, and it is delightful to see an established novelist answer the call."--Lachlan MacKinnon, Times Literary Supplement "[McCall Smith's] little book, part of Princeton's Writers on Writers series, is a joy, start to finish."--Philadelphia Inquirer "Mystery scribe Alexander McCall Smith explains to us What W.H. Auden Can Do For You, an appreciation of the poet that should appeal even to those only familiar with his work via 'Four Weddings and a Funeral.'"--Eugenia Williamson, Boston Globe "Alexander McCall Smith plumbs the British poet's modern resonance in this charming, quirky, slim volume, a deft weave of biography, textual analysis and memoir. It's a must-read for Auden fans--even more for those who know his work only from a British rom-com... That there's only kindness in the telling marks the moral generosity McCall Smith says the great poet has taught him. He's learned a bunch of other stuff as well. And if you read his quietly wise book, you'll learn it, too."--Anne Kingston, Maclean's "McCall Smith traces the trajectory, both of [Auden's] travels and the resultant poems ... in a pitch-perfect conversational tone... His is a gift of charm, and of clarity of image--both of which he uses to the best of his ability here, in the creation of a book that is both the perfect jumping-on point for those coming late (forty-odd years after his death) to Auden and the perfect celebration for those who, like Mr. McCall Smith and this reader, have long revered and loved this odd little man and his teeth-rattlingly good poetry... What W. H. Auden Can Do for You speaks to each of the poet's major works with equal aplomb and gives each its proper niche in the man's life, and, in doing so, presents a thumbnail for each of the Seven Ages of this man, from the Voyager to 'the mature Auden, the Auden of settled views, the religious Auden; and finally the cantankerous and complaining Auden of late middle-age,' each lovingly wrought... What W. H. Auden Can Do for You is a wonderful work, one that more than holds its own with the other authors canonized in Princeton's series, Walt Whitman, Susan Sontag, and Arthur Conan Doyle. And if it accomplishes what it sets out to do--to make the case that reading the poetry of W. H. Auden allows for the spontaneous combustion of the human intellect--then Alexander McCall Smith will have done something pretty great for us all as well."--Vinton Rafe McCabe, New York Journal of Books "This book shows us many Audens, not least the cantankerous, carpet-slippered panacea the bulk of us know and love... [B]eautifully put together. For those of us who have waded through a morass of arduous criticism on Auden, it is nice to be reminded why this poet means so much for so many. For those who have not, McCall Smith's book is a great place to start."--Neilson MacKay, NewCriterion.com "[O]f all the volumes I've read about him, and all the tributes paid, the most remarkable and in a sense the most lovable is a highly personal, 137-page book by Alexander McCall Smith, What W.H. Auden Can Do For You."--Robert Fulford, National Post "[M]aybe the name of this book is the most radical, insightful thing about it: the notion that Auden is, as McCall Smith writes, 'a healer,' and that this is healing is collective. It's not just what Auden can do for you alone, but for all of us."--Alex Nazaryan, Newsweek "[A] charming, insightful, personal look at one of the 20th century's great poets."--Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times "Not only does What W.H. Auden Can Do for You express Smith's deep admiration of Auden's poetry, but his paean to the messy maestro also makes for a charming, honest look at Auden's failings... Still, Smith's passion for the poet cannot help but inspire us... [He] wisely counsels us to turn to the poems themselves to assess how much light they shed on our lives and loves. We won't be disappointed. For as Isabel Dalhousie knows so well, reading poetry may put us on the right track, after all."--Arlice Davenport, Wichita Eagle "Novelist Alexander McCall Smith has written a short, personal book about another abiding poet: Wystan Hugh Auden, dead these 40 years... McCall Smith feels enormous gratitude to Auden, and he is a keen proselytiser for poetry: its unique force and moral necessity... With poems like Lullaby and Muse'e des Beaux Arts, Auden transcended his obscure vocabulary and arcane interests to become that rarest of creatures, a necessary poet--the creator of works that people chant to themselves on beaches and read to the bereaved or the newly married. Again and again we return to this strange, weathered scholar poet because he helps us to live."--Peter Rose, Sydney Morning Herald "For some people The Art of War is a touchstone. A guide to living and to life. For others it is Tao Te Ching or even The Tao of Pooh. In his latest book, number one detective Alexander McCall Smith has an admission to make: his own personal touchstone is Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden... If you are a fan of Auden's work, this is a must-read."--Jones Atwater, January Magazine "McCall Smith makes an excellent case for a young generation to get acquainted with the life trajectory of Auden as poet and as struggling human."--Barbara Berman, TheRumpus.net "[C]harming, and easily told... [B]eautifully produced."--Fiona Sampson, New Humanist "[A] thoughtful and generous guide to more than the selected poems of W.H. Auden. An uplifting, pocket-sized vade mecum it made me rethink how I read, why poetry can be relevant both to everyday life and great events and it was refreshingly illuminating on the ways we age."--Caroline Jackson, Tablet "Any interested in literature and poetry will find this a memorable, insightful analysis!"--James A. Cox, California Bookwatch "McCall Smith restores the link between poetry and life, a link that encourages us to linger and reflect on every line or couplet. He demonstrates that Auden was capable of compressing a great deal of thought allusively into a few words, and suggests a technique that we can then apply ourselves... The main point about this little book is that it will attract readers to Auden, and furthermore suggest what is now almost a subversive idea, at least among intellectuals, that literature is not primarily the fodder for unreadable treatises and suety theories, but a way of finding or deepening the meaning of our lives."--Anthony Daniels, New Criterion "Sheer delight in the written and spoken word beams forth from Alexander McCall Smith's overview of the life of the one of the greatest 20th century poets, the Anglo-American poet, W. H. Auden, and his work in What W.H. Auden Can Do for You. The fluency and vigor of McCall Smith's writing gives a strength and momentum to the text that encourages one to read the whole book through without pause. The accessible way in which the author introduces even some of the most complex topics that are covered in Auden's poetry makes this a gem for non-academics and scholars alike."--Lois Henderson, Bookpleasures.com "What W. H. Auden Can Do for You is a graceful and personal response of gratitude for Auden, celebrating the resonance, reverence, and rebellion of the man who believed 'truth is catholic, but the search for it is protestant.'"--Mark Oakley, Church Times "The main point about this little book is that it will attract readers to Auden, and furthermore suggest what is now almost a subversive idea, at least among intellectuals, that literature is not primarily the fodder for unreadable treatises and suety theories, but a way of finding or deepening the meaning of our lives."--Anthony Daniels, New Criterion "[A] charming little book."--Robert Fulford, National Post "Entertainingly dense yet poetically informative, I found What W.H. Auden Can Do For You a more than inspiring read, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone remotely interested in poetics and the sometimes shameful ways of the world."--David MarxTable of ContentsAuthor's Note vii 1. Love Illuminates Again ... 1 2. Who Was He? 7 3. A Discovery of Auden 19 4. Choice and Quest 33 5. The Poet as Voyager 39 6. Politics and Sex 45 7. If I Could Tell You I Would Let You Know 55 8. What Freud Meant 65 9. A Vision of Agape 75 10. That We May Have Dreams and Visions 91 11. And Then There Is Nature 99 12. Auden as a Guide to the Living of One's Life 123

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2020: Critics' Picks""Foster’s characteristic brio brings Heaney to life again. . . . On Seamus Heaney, with its abundant account of his life, its illuminating analysis of his work, and the generous quotations from favourite poems, should find a place on bookshelves all over Ireland and beyond."---Clíona Ní Ríordáin, Irish Times"A sparkling memorial to an utterly singular poet."---Sebastian Barry, Sydney Morning Herald"[An] excellent new study."---James Parker, The Atlantic"A compact but comprehensive guide."---Seamus Perry, London Review of Books ​​​​​​"This exploration of Heaney’s oeuvre, and the tumultuous times that inspired it, is an immensely enjoyable step towards giving Ireland’s great poet his due."---Maria Crawford, Financial Times"There will be longer, fatter biographical and critical books about Seamus Heaney, but none will be better written, more knowledgeable, more generously understanding than this one."---Anne Chisholm, The Tablet ​​​​​​​"One of the most elegant works of criticism I have ever read."---David Mason, Hudson Review"Engrossing. . . . Undeniably impressive."---Hilary A. White, Irish Independent"Foster brings long-felt passion and measured scholarship to his welcome analysis of the poetry of Seamus Heaney." * RTE *"A concise, meticulously researched account. . . . Foster couples forensic attention to detail with engaging prose."---Tara McEvoy, Times Literary Supplement"More than [in] any other writing on Heaney, you actually get a sense of Heaney’s own personality, his charisma, his friendliness, his warmth, his humour and it’s a hugely respectful biography in that way because you get the sense of Heaney’s own words about himself that have not been made public before and you’ve got the impression, at least, of being in his company and that’s one of the things I was hoping for in the book and it certainly comes across."---Peter Mackay, BBC Radio 3 "Free Thinking""As one would expect of Foster, the suavest Irish historian of his generation, the handling of Irish contexts . . . is impeccable."---David Wheatley, Literary Review"Foster's painstakingly researched and affectionately penned On Seamus Heaney offers an illuminating bite-sized refresher course on one of our greatest literary talents."---David Roy, Irish News"[A] succinct but insightful critical biography that puts the poetry of Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) firmly in the context of his life and times. . . . This reflective and incisive study works both as an academic research aid and as an accessible primer for general poetry readers." * Publishers Weekly *"[A] careful and attentive poetic biography."---Peter Craven, Sydney Morning Herald"A brief and brilliant study that weaves together the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet."---Sunil Khilnani, Open Magazine"The joy of this book emanates from the sense of intimacy that Foster captures in each epoch, enabling readers to get a sense of Heaney’s personality. . . . This book is an essential complement to any study of Heaney’s poetry, as it creates a more comprehensive understanding of how life informs art." * Choice *"A timely perspective on the Northern Irish troubles as experienced and responded to in Heaney’s work."---Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star"If a book on poetry can teach, Roy Foster’s new book about Ireland’s Nobel Prize poet Seamus Heaney shares it all."---Ronn Hartviksen, Chronicle Journal"It is difficult to imagine how a brief, general, fair-minded introduction to Heaney might be bettered . . . . The book is more literary criticism than biography, although it effortlessly combines the two so that it’s difficult to say where one starts and the other ends, which suits Heaney down to the ground. Foster’s trademark elegance, clarity, and skill in shaping a narrative are to the fore, and he remains a more lucid and nuanced reader of Irish poetry than many specialized critics."---Alan Gillis, Irish University Review"Writing with the restraint of the professional academic but with all the vim of a youthful enthusiast, R. F. Foster has published On Seamus Heaney, his take on the life and writings of one of Ireland’s famous poets . . . Foster has captured the young Heaney in a manner that readers can grasp fully, and the description is written in elevated language that is appropriate to the status of its subject. . . . I recommend this book very highly indeed."---Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective"[On Seamus Heaney] adds welcome layers to our understanding of Heaney as a poet and of the kind of public intellectual who attains moral standing in the wider world. . . . I hope that others who care about our literary inheritance will use On Seamus Heaney as a standard for writing about writing. Its combination of meticulousness and soul can only enrich our understanding."---Denise Provost, Somerville Times"One of the finest books to date on Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney."---Daniel Picker, New Ulster"A very good 'short book essay' on one of my favorite poets."---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution"[Foster’s] knowledge of Heaney is nothing short of encyclopedic. . . . An excellent roadmap for readers."---John Austin Gray, Fare Forward"It’s not the done thing to choose a book of which I’m the dedicatee: even so, RF Foster’s On Seamus Heaney, which is short but runs deep, was for me the richest food for the spirit in 2020."---Jan Dalley, Financial Times"R. F. Foster has herein written an altogether focused, and most vivid account of quite possibly the most important Irish poet of the postwar era."---David Marx, David Marx Book Reviews

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the radical politics and poetics of Linton Kwesi Johnson.Trade Review'David Austin offers nothing less than a radical geography of black art in his (re)sounding of Linton Kwesi Johnson. You don't play with Johnson's revolutionary poetry, Austin teaches, and 'Dread, Poetry and Freedom' is as serious, and beautiful, as our life' -- Fred Moten, poet, critic and theorist'A moving and dialogic musing on freedom. Austin's richly textured study reads LKJ's poetry in relation to an expansive tradition of black radical politics and poetics. It captures both the urgency of Johnson's historical moment and his resonance for ours' -- Shalini Puri, Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh'With the intensity of a devotee and the precision of a scholar, David Austin skillfully traverses the dread terrain of Linton Kwesi Johnson's politics and poetry, engaging readers in an illuminating dialogue with diverse interlocutors who haunt the writer's imagination' -- Carolyn Cooper, cultural critic, author of 'Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the 'Vulgar' Body of Jamaican Popular Culture'' 'Dread, Poetry and Freedom' offers an expansive exploration of Caribbean political and cultural history, from Rastafari in Jamaica and Walter Rodney and Guyana to the Cuban Revolution with impressive articulations of the significance of Fanonism. Caribbean political theory is animating literary and cultural studies diasporically; this work demonstrates this elegantly' -- Carole Boyce Davies, author of 'Caribbean Spaces', Professor of Africana Studies and Literature at Cornell UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface Prologue 1. The Poet's Routes 2. Dread Dialectics 3. Dread Poetry and Freedom 4. Politics and Mourning in 'Reggae fi Radni' 5. The Wise Old Shepherd 6. The Good Life 7. More Time 8. Searching for the Fantastic Post-Apartheid Postscript Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBy encouraging a reconsideration of Norman Mailer's career from its beginnings to his final books in the early twenty-first century, this volume forges a new path toward appreciating the author's achievements that underscores the extent to which his work can help us confront the challenges of today.

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Book SynopsisExamines the representation and staging of chance in literature through the work of the French writer Georges Perec. This book explores the ways in which Perec's texts exploit the possibilities of chance, by both tapping into its creative potential and controlling its operation.Trade ReviewWarren F. Motte calls it an erudite, engaging, intellectually intrepid reflection on the ways in which one of the most powerful authors of the twentieth century grappled with the notion of chance. [James] writes with both elegance and authority, inviting us to see Georges Perec's work through a new lens, one where chance may be viewed as a positive potential, fully enlisted in the service of 'intentional' literature.Table of ContentsIntroduction; The Notion of Chance; Chance and Literature; Perec and the Oulipo; Mastering History; History, Politics, and La Ligne generale; Commitment or Chance; Conquering the World; Les Choses: Tensions and Tenses; Escaping History: Un homme qui dort; Chance and Circumstance; Questioning Destiny; Power and Passivity; Chance and the Law; Life as Lottery: Perec and Borges; Possibilities; Games of Anti-Chance; Fortune and Fate; Cause and Effect; Incidents and Accidents; Reversals and Recognitions; Chance and Calamity; Stories Without Event; Retrospection and Rupture; Digression and Damnation; Traps and Machinations; Hidden Signals; Means and Ends; Schemes and Disguises; Chance and Detection; Clue and Coincidence; Red Herrings; Text and World; A Challenge to Chance; The Poetics of the Oulipo; Chance and the Oulipo's Critics; Voluntary Literature: Oulipian Anti-Surrealism; Aleatory Art; Controlling Chance; Chance and Language; Mysticism, Mathematics, Meaning; Method and Mechanism: S+7; Perec's Constraints: Combination, Coincidence, Clinamen; La Disparition; Codes and Cliches; Alphabets: Chaotic Language; La Vie mode d' emploi: Combination and Clinamen; From List to Text; Coherence and Multiplicity; Form Versus Diagram; Constraint and Chaos; Labyrinths and Puzzles; Literary Labyrinths; The Rat in the Maze; Ceiling and City; Verbal Ruses and Oulipian Rats; Complications; The Art of the Jigsaw; Artists and Quests; Chance and System; Ordering the Infra-Ordinary; Chance and the Real; Les Choses: Objects as Signs; Common Things: Perec and the Infra-Ordinary; Chance, Perception, Habit: Tentative d' epuisement d' une lieu parisien; The Event and the Everyday; Perec's Lists; Classifications; The World as Jigsaw; Order and Constraint; Conclusion; Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisThis biography of Twala, an unjustly neglected Black African literary figure in apartheid South Africa and colonial Swaziland (now Eswatini) shows that her posthumous obscurity has been no accident.Trade Review“An honest, sensitive portrayal of a complex, determined woman who deserves recognition.” * Library Journal *“Joel Cabrita’s Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala is that extraordinary work of restoration that restores not just the historical subject herself, but Twala’s entire social milieu. This then allows us to contemplate the vicissitudes of her life and the processes by which she came to her life choices in great and intimate detail. Cabrita has given us an exemplary historical biography that will have ramifications well beyond the boundaries of African history itself.” -- Ato Quayson, Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and professor of English at Stanford University“A marvelously clever biography. Cabrita tells the story of Regina Twala’s life while simultaneously writing the tale of her erasure. What a bold, ambitious, and necessary project. Twala’s life is rendered in technicolor and so too are the processes that almost buried her bright, shining light. An important and beautifully told tale of ‘sanctioned forgetting,’ and glorious remembering.” -- Sisonke Msimang, author of The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela“Joel Cabrita has written a deeply compelling narrative that gives Regina Gelana Twala, a pioneering twentieth-century South African intellectual, the honor and recognition that she deserves. Twala incisively intervened in the leading questions raised by a racist and patriarchal society, such as gender relations, the role of custom, mass protests, among many, despite being marginalized and often abused for her status as a woman and outsider.” -- Pamela Scully, author of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf“This is a gem of a story. Joel Cabrita has pulled Regina Twala out of obscurity, showing us a life lived publicly and vigorously. In doing so, she provokes a conversation about what kinds of figures are rendered important in the writing of histories. She upends the notion that women are ignored because their works are obscure. Here, we have a full-blooded tale of a public figure who has, puzzlingly, been forgotten. Read the book to understand why.” -- Shireen Hassim, author of The ANC Women's League: Sex, Gender and Politics“An intriguing work of historical investigation. . . . [Joel Cabrita] tells Twala’s life story in a compelling narrative woven from a rich archive of details drawn from interviews with relatives, a captivating and extensive collection of letters, as well as official sources. She deftly layers the personal and the political dimensions of Twala’s life in ways that make for a deeply moving read. But she goes a step further. She brings Twala’s history to light within the context of her erasure, addressing the archival blind spots that produce these kinds of omissions in the first place. Written Out is a significant contribution to African feminist scholarship and intellectual history. The book is not just a biography. It is an archaeology. In telling Twala’s story, Cabrita lays bare the underlying forces of racism and sexism that conspire to silence black women in history." -- Ainehi Edoro, founder and editor of Brittle PaperA stunning achievement. Cabrita’s powerful rendering of Regina Gelana Twala deserves to be widely read and taught in courses on African history, intellectual history, and gender studies. -- Lynn M. Thomas * International Journal of African Historical Studies *

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Book SynopsisDesigned for students, teachers, scholars, poets, and readers with a general interest in poetics, this book presents an intellectual history of the theory of lyric reading that has circulated both within and beyond the classroom, wherever poetry is taught, read, discussed, and debated today.Trade ReviewThe thesis of The Lyric Theory Reader-that the very existence of the genre is more a critical extrapolation than anything solid and real-may seem to be itself a kind of critical conceit, but only because the argument serves the Reader exceptionally well as a cogent frame for taking stock of a diversity of approaches. Accordingly, the Reader would seem especially useful as a primer for up and coming scholars... Overall, the Reader should be considered essential in the formation of a thoughtful scholar of poetry and its criticism. -- Peter Fields Rocky Mountain ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments General Introduction Part I. How Does Lyric Become a Genre?Section 1. Genre TheorySection 2. Models of LyricPart I. Twentieth-Century Lyric ReadersSection 3. Anglo- American New Criticism Section 4. Structuralist Reading Section 5. Post- Structuralist ReadingSection 6. Frankfurt School and AfterSection 7. Phenomenologies of Lyric ReadingPart III. Lyric DeparturesSection 8. Avant- garde Anti-lyricism Section 9. Lyric and Sexual Difference Section 10. Comparative Lyric Contributors Source Acknowledgments Index of Authors and Works

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Book SynopsisA novel account of the relationship between postindustrial capitalism and postmodern culture, this book looks at American poetry and art of the last fifty years in light of the massive changes in people's working lives. Over the last few decades, we have seen the shift from an economy based on the production of goods to one based on the provision of services, the entry of large numbers of women into the workforce, and the emergence of new digital technologies that have transformed the way people work. The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization argues that art and literature not only reflected the transformation of the workplace but anticipated and may have contributed to it as well, providing some of the terms through which resistance to labor was expressed. As firms continue to tout creativity and to reorganize in response to this resistance, they increasingly rely on models of labor that derive from values and ideas found in the experimental poetry and conceptual art of decades past.Trade Review"The originality of this study of postwar literature and capitalism lies not just in its focus on production as opposed to consumption, or on the effects that transformations of labor have had on what kind of art was made, by whom, and how. It lies also in its rigorous attention to the effects that aesthetic concepts have exerted on the transformation of labor, and to how art responds when wage labor is recast in explicitly aesthetic terms. Bernes's book goes beyond reflectionist arguments and elective affinities. Sobering and optimistic at once, it gives us new tools to think about the relation between art and labor, even as the two seem to be converging irreversibly." -- Sianne Ngai * Stanford University *"Far from wanting to tout any hoary theory of the artist-as-prophet, Bernes is working with a remarkably sophisticated and resilient new critical model which will doubtless have a lot of traction in the years ahead." -- Julian Murphet * Affirmations: Of the Modern *"Bernes poses the question of whether the quintessentially unproductive, workless realm of poetry may be instructive for what our precarious and workless capitalist future holds. The result is an intellectually rich, dynamic and lucidly written book...The theses Bernes puts forward concerning poetry's instrumentalization by capitalism will be of interest to all scholars of modern literature, not merely those interested in the postwar American poets and artists studied in detail here."––Benjamin Pickford, Literature & History"Developments in poetry and art, Bernes argues, also feed reciprocally into...transformations in the workplace, as 'aspects of the artistic critique, such as the critique of work from the standpoint of participation, became essential parts of the restructuring undertaken by capitalists to improve profitability'....[With] acute sensitivity to poetic form and [a] profound grasp of historical capitalism as filtered through their chosen sites of the gendered body and the workplace...Bernes [avoids] reductively optimistic or pessimistic claims about either poetry's total immunity or its total complicity." -- Walt Hunter * American Literary History *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts0Introduction chapter abstractAn overview of the argument of the book, the Introduction discusses postwar literature and art in light of the transformation of advanced capitalist economies, in particular the shift from the production of goods to the provision of services and the expansion of white-collar and in-person service work. Through an examination of some key examples, Bernes argues that the neo-avant-garde language of "participation," aiming to overcome the hierarchical relationship between writer and reader, artist and audience, anticipated and contributed to a shift in management theory toward new horizontal forms of corporate structure, undertaken in response to the widespread rebellion against the "anachronistic authoritarianism" of the postwar workplace. Bernes summarizes the main chapters of the book as well as its conclusions and finishes with a general discussion of periodization and historicization, elucidating his unique methodology in light of Marxist debates about historical causality. 1Lyric and the Service Sector: Frank O'Hara at Work chapter abstractO'Hara's "I do this, I do that" poems detail the poet's movements through the city during periods of leisure. In this chapter, Bernes argues that such leisure periods are usually, implicitly or explicitly, circumscribed by periods of work. This is especially true in Lunch Poems, where the conceit of the book is that many of the poems were written during his "lunch hour." O'Hara's lunch-hour pastorals are not so much opposed to the workday and its unfree time of getting things done as they are a space for an alternative kind of work. This chapter proposes that we see O'Hara as poet of service work as much as poet of consumption, reorienting ourselves to the presence of labor (his own and others') within the poems. In particular, Bernes argues, O'Hara adapts the resources of the lyric poem to the transactional space of service work. 2John Ashbery's Free Indirect Labor chapter abstractThe early poems of John Ashbery must be read as a meditation on the plight of labor, particularly white-collar labor, in the postwar United States. Beginning with an early poem, "The Instruction Manual" (1956), and its exploration of the ambiguous class position of white-collar workers, this chapter tracks themes of both labor and management in Ashbery's experimental second book, The Tennis Court Oath. In this book the standpoint of the earlier poem gives way to an explosion of shifting voices as Ashbery's distinctive use of free indirect discourse and other techniques of point of view registers the contemporary breakdown in labor relations and the crisis for established modes of management. In Ashbery's mature style of the 1970s, this chaotic play of voices yields to a comparatively measured technology of point of view, which reflects the new modes of management that followed the crises of the 1960s and 1970s. 3The Poetry of Feedback chapter abstractEmerging from the military-industrial research programs of World War II, cybernetics presents an image of social self-regulation based on reciprocal, horizontal, and participatory relations rather than explicit hierarchies. This is appealing both to firms looking for a way to cut administrative bloat and trim costs and to artists and writers interested in developing a "participatory" practice, one that undoes the division of labor between reader and writer, spectator and art maker. Cybernetics promises a mode of collaboration and collectivity that liberates art from the narrow confines of artists. This chapter examines Hannah Weiner's Code Poems alongside Dan Graham's Works for Magazine Pages, both of which sit at the interstices of experimental poetry and conceptual art and both of which put cybernetic discourse to work to model alternative social relations. In each case, the laboratory of social relations takes postwar labor as its subject. 4The Feminization of Speedup chapter abstractEngaging debates around the status of unpaid reproductive labor, this chapter investigates Bernadette Mayer's multifarious project Memory, which is simultaneously a performance, a conceptual work, an installation, and an epic poem. In attempting to document, down to the smallest detail, every aspect of her life for thirty days—using photographs, audio recordings, and written notation—Mayer effectively demonstrates the subsumption of the entirety of life by the protocols and routines of work as well as the transformation of the relationship between unpaid reproductive work and feminized wage labor. Mayer's "total" artwork, which merges different technologies into a single apparatus, prefigures the reorganization of office work around the personal computer, a technology that has probably done more than anything else to ensure that work and home life are unified by enabling white-collar workers to accomplish tasks from home and, in that sense, never leave work. 5Art, Work, and Endlessness in the 2000s chapter abstractThis chapter skips forward several decades, to the 2000s, and looks at the legacy of the transformations discussed in the preceding chapters. Bernes examines the debates that followed the emergence of "Flarf" and "conceptual poetry," both movements that foregrounded their relationship to contemporary office work. He focuses in particular on the relationship between Flarf poetry, with its rebellious use of work time, work machinery, and work jargon, and the increase in interworker aggression, which he attributes to the inability of workers to find outlets for resistance. Bernes links this horizontalized aggression with the phenomenon of the "Internet troll," who responds to the emasculation that male workers feel as a consequence of the restructuring of labor. By the 2000s, firms had so thoroughly neutralized the aesthetic critique of labor mobilized by preceding generations of artists that it persisted only in various forms of minor rebellion and acting out. 6Epilogue: Overflow chapter abstractThe Epilogue considers the possible fate of the artistic critique of labor in the decades to come. As demand for labor weakens because of ongoing structural transformations, the link between art and labor will likewise weaken, Bernes argues. Thus, artists would do well to revive older traditions linking the poet to wagelessness. The Epilogue examines these traditions, beginning with the Renaissance ballad and continuing through the Romantic poetry of vagrancy and the African American fugitive lyric, linking this poetic history to a theoretical investigation of what Karl Marx calls "surplus populations." The long history of the poetics of wagelessness gives some indication of the aesthetic outlines of the coming era. In closing, Bernes looks at two contemporary poets, Fred Moten and Wendy Trevino, who engage this long tradition and mobilize it to meet the specific conditions of twenty-first-century capitalism.

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Book SynopsisJapan’s postwar urban imagination through the Metabolism architecture movement and visionary science fiction authors The devastation of the Second World War gave rise to imaginations both utopian and apocalyptic. In Japan, a fascinating confluence of architects and science fiction writers took advantage of this space to begin remaking urban design. In The Metabolist Imagination, William O. Gardner explores the unique Metabolism movement, which allied with science fiction authors to foresee the global cities that would emerge in the postwar era.This first comparative study of postwar Japanese architecture and science fiction builds on the resurgence of interest in Metabolist architecture while establishing new directions for exploration. Gardner focuses on how these innovators created unique versions of shared concepts—including futurity, megastructures, capsules, and cybercities—making lasting contributions that resonate with contemporary conversations around cyberpunk, climate change, anime, and more.The Metabolist Imagination features original documentation of collaborations between giants of postwar Japanese art and architecture, such as the landmark 1970 Osaka Expo. It also provides the most sustained English-language discussion to date of the work of Komatsu Sakyō, considered one of the “big three” authors of postwar Japanese science fiction. These studies are underscored by Gardner’s insightful approach—treating architecture as a form of speculative fiction while positioning science fiction as an intervention into urban design—making it a necessary read for today’s visionaries.Trade Review"A compelling and visionary analysis. William O. Gardner traces shared imaginations of the future city in postwar Japanese fiction, film, and architecture, brilliantly demonstrating the originality of Japanese visions of cities and societies to come. At the same time, he shows how even the most innovative urban visions of recent novels and anime are anchored in ancient Japanese aesthetic and building traditions. A must-read for anyone interested in urban studies, architecture, and science fiction—or, quite simply, the future."—Ursula K. Heise, author of Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species"The Metabolist Imagination is an ambitious and meticulously researched study of the intersections of science fiction and architectural discourse in postwar through contemporary Japan, an innovative pairing that leads to numerous insights across disciplines."—Seiji Lippit, author of Topographies of Japanese Modernism"William O. Gardner is a splendid scholar-critic of Japanese cityscape. The Metabolist Imagination brilliantly foregrounds the postmodern transactions between cutting edge architecture and emergent Japanese science fiction. No one has ever succeeded in exploring so provocatively the singular point between Metabolist works exhibited at EXPO70 and hardcore science fiction novels as represented by Sakyo Komatsu, one of the producers of the very exposition."—Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio University"The Metabolist Imagination—dense and scholarly but highly enjoyable and revealing, especially for someone who likes Japanese architecture and the occasional anime."—Daily Dose of Architecture"Eye-opening in more ways than one."—ArchiECHO"The Metabolist Imagination is a thrilling new contribution that disentangles Japan’s complex 1960s and 1970s from the vantage of interdisciplinary insight."—Journal of Asian Studies "The significant contribution of this book is to invite us to consider our relationship to the ever-changing natural/cultural environment by exploring the interrelationship between future-oriented architecture (and the city) and science fiction."—Journal of Japanese Studies "The Metabolist Imagination is an important contribution to Japanese urban studies and to the burgeoning scholarly discussion of Japan’s 1960s and 1970s. In its attention to architecture, popular literature, film, anime, collage, performance, and the ferment among those, it admirably demonstrates the rewards of an intermedial approach."—Monumenta NipponicaTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. City Visions: Metabolism and Science Fiction2. Ruined Cities: Isozaki Arata and Komatsu Sakyô3. Planetary Cities: Komatsu Sakyô’s Disaster Fiction4. Future City: The 1970 Osaka Expo5. Liquid Cities: The Technopolis from Expo to Cyberpunk6. Metabolist Echoes: Akira, Patlabor, and Yanobe KenjiNotesSelected FilmographyBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA memoir of a young boy's unusual travels with his mother. The author recreates his boyhood experiences, relating how he and his mother travelled throughout the United States, and tracing his experiences and changes from young boy to manhood against the background of a violent and wildly optimistic America.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOdd Girls reverberates with the powerful voices of people speaking for themselves... Faderman empowers her subject; instead of allowing lesbian lifestyles to be defined from the outside, her voice and those of other women transcend destructive stereotypes and misconceptions. Odd Girls offers a lucidly written and moving narrative of lesbian culture and community during its formative years. The Village Voice Fascinating... poignant and moving... Odd Girls is full of facts and wonderful details that readers may not have encountered, things that are a pleasure to learn and that seem valuable to know. Los Angeles Times Book Review One has to respect the tenacity of Lillian Faderman for making sense of the evolution of lesbian life in twentieth-century America... This is a remarkable social history... Her study attains the depth and evenhandedness of a scholarly classic. -- Susan Brownmiller The Washington Post Book World An important and challenging work for lesbians and heterosexuals alike... Odd Girls is a key work, the point of reference which all subsequent studies of twentieth-century lesbian life in the United States will begin. San Francisco Examiner Faderman's sweeping, mesmerizing prose accentuates the magnificent scholarship in this definitive account of lesbian life in the past 100 years... Faderman has combined her talent and experience to accomplish this wonder. -- Barbara Grier Lambda Book Report Nothing odd about Odd Girls--it combines clear prose with meticulous research. This book is an important contribution to understanding America and its people in our time. -- Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle A grand narrative synthesis of the cultural, social, and political history of lesbian life since the late nineteenth century... Engaging and deeply moving stories. New York Times Book Review A splendid, uplifting achievement. The IndependentTable of ContentsContents Introduction 1. "The Loves of Women for Each Other": "Romantic Friends" in the Twentieth Century 2. A Worm in the Bud: The Early Sexologists and Love Between Women 3. Lesbian Chic: Experimentation and Repression in the 1920s 4. Wastelands and Oases: The 1930s 5. "Naked Amazons and Queer Damozels": World War II and Its Aftermath 6. The Love that Dares Not Speak Its Name: McCarthyism and Its Legacy 7. Butches, Femmes, and Kikis: Creating Lesbian Subcultures in the 1950s and '60s 8. "Not a Public Relations Movement": Lesbian Revolutions in the 1960s Through '70s 9. Lesbian Nation: Creating a Women-Identified-Women Community in the 1970s 10. Lesbian Sex Wars in the 1980s 11. From Tower of Babel to Community: Lesbian Life in the 1980s Epilogue: Social Constructions and the Metamorphoses of Love Between Women Notes Index

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Book SynopsisPlants have played key roles in science fiction novels, graphic novels and film. John Wyndham’s triffids, Algernon Blackwood’s willows and Han Kang’s sprouting woman are just a few examples. Plants surround us, sustain us, pique our imaginations and inhabit our metaphors – but in many ways they remain opaque. The scope of their alienation is as broad as their biodiversity. And yet, literary reflections of plant-life are driven, as are many threads of science fictional inquiry, by the concerns of today. Plants in Science Fiction is the first-ever collected volume on plants in science fiction, and its original essays argue that plant-life in SF is transforming our attitudes toward morality, politics, economics and cultural life at large – questioning and shifting our understandings of institutions, nations, borders and boundaries; erecting and dismantling new visions of utopian and dystopian futures.Trade Review“Science fiction teaches us to ‘be-with others better.’ This is the core argument of Plants in Science Fiction, captured in one of its chapters and suffused throughout. Readers will come away with a profound and challenging understanding of what it means to be human, as well as a deep appreciation for the critical function of science fiction in a threatened world.” -- Eric Otto, Florida Gulf Coast University“Plants in Science Fiction demonstrates that science fiction and ecocriticism have much to say to each other. By considering ‘speculative vegetation,’ of course, we learn much about our own lives in the present moment on Earth.’ -- Scott Slovic, Editor-in-Chief, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and EnvironmentTable of ContentsContributors Introduction - Katherine E. Bishop Abjection Weird Flora: Plant Life in the Classic Weird Tale - Jessica George ‘Bloody unnatural brutes’: Anthropomorphism, Colonialism and the Return of the Repressed in John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids - Jerry Määttä Botanical Tentacles and the Chthulucene- Shelley Saguaro Affinity Between the Living and the Dead: Vegetal Afterlives in Evgenii Iufit's and Vladimir Maslov’s Silver Heads - Brittany Roberts Vegetable Love: Desire, Feeling, and Sexuality in Botanical Fiction - T. S. Miller Alternative Reproduction: Plant-time and Human/Arboreal Assemblages in Holdstock and Han - Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook Accord Sunlight as a Photosynthetic Information Technology: Becoming Plant in Tom Robbins’s Jitterbug Perfume - Yogi Hale Hendlin The Question of the Vegetal, the Animal, the Archive in Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Queen City Jazz - Graham J. Murphy Queer Ingestions: Weird, Vegetative Bodies in Jeff VanderMeer’s Fiction - Alison Sperling The Botanical Ekphrastic and Ecological Relocation - Katherine E. Bishop Selected Bibliography Index

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First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergsonâs LâÃvolution crÃatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergsonâs most important and ambitious works to a new generation of readers.A sympathetic though critical reader of Darwin, Bergson argues in Creative Evolution against a mechanistic, reductionist view of evolution. For Bergson, all life emerges from a creative, shared impulse, which he famously terms Ãlan vital and which passes like a current through different organisms and generations over time. Whilst this impulse remains as forms of life diverge and multiply, human life is characterized by a distinctive form of consciousness or intellect. Yet as Bergson brilliantly shows, the intellectâs fragmentary and action- oriented nature, which he likens to the cinematograph, means

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Book SynopsisJames Joyce''s Ulysses is filled with all sorts of references that can get in the way of many of its readers. This volume, with over 12,000 individual annotations (and more than double the word count of Ulysses itself), explains these references and allusions in a clear and compact manner and is designed to be accessible to novices and scholars alike.The annotations cover the full range of information referenced in Ulysses: a vast array of literary allusions, such as Shakespeare, Aristotle, Dante, Aquinas, slang from various eras and areas, foreign language words and phrases, Hiberno-English expressions, Catholic ritual and theology, Irish histories, Theosophy, Freemasonry, cricket, astronomy, fashion, boxing, heraldry, the symbolism of tattoos, horse racing, advertising slogans, nursery rhymes, superstitions, music-hall songs, references to Dublin topography precise enough for a city directory, and much more besides.The annotations reflect the latest scholarship and have been thoroughly reviewed by an international team of experts. They are designed to be accessible to first-time readers and college students and will also serve as a resource for Joycean specialists. The volume includes contemporaneous maps of Dublin to illustrate the cityscape''s relevance to Joyce''s novel. Unlike previous volumes of annotations, almost every note includes documentation about sources.Trade Reviewcomprehensive, incisive and indispensable * Colm Tóibín, The Irish Times, Best Books of 2022 *One of the best books ever devoted to the classic. This heroically researched [book] is twice as long as its subject text - and well worth it...here at last is a volume that not only explains places but directs the reader to hundreds of further sources. The result is a kind of short story behind most of the footnotes, of a kind which Joyce (I guess)would have approved...simply one of the best [books] ever devoted to Ulysses. * Declan Kiberd, The Irish Times *Among the flurry of publications celebrating the centenary of the publication of Joyce's classic novel, this massive, 1,420-page guide, though hardly portable, is an outstanding addition to the scholarship on Ulysses. * W. Baker, CHOICE *The range of cultural references, encompassing the gamut from popular forms like advertising and general knowledge to Irish history, religion, music and 'high-brow' literature, is as astonishing as the exactitude of urban details relating to Dublin's streets as they existed in 1904 and Annotations records them with intelligence and prudence. * Sean Sheehan, Scottish Left Review *...monumental, exhaustive and thoroughly engrossing volume, edited by an unsurpassed team of scholars...a towering, epochal achievement... * Anne Fogarty, James Joyce Broadsheet *Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses by Sam Slote, Marc Mamigonian and John Turner takes on board all the research and scholarship done since Don Gifford's groundbreaking Notes for Joyce. ... Joyce the untiring chronicler of detail has met his match in the compilers of these annotations * Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books *The new Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses has a great deal to teach to this Joyce buff. The scholarly work here offers insights into Joyce's intentions and tracks the precise movements of his supple, monumentally well-stocked mind. [...] I offer thanks to these gifted scholars for their meticulous research and concise writing. * Robert Seidman, co-author of 'Ulysses' Annotated, James Joyce Quarterly *Even after scores of readings and minute research, I have found that no other literary evocation rewards me as much as Ulysses does... And thank you, informed, insightful, tireless trio-Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner-for the richness of your work. * James Joyce Quarterly 60.4 *Table of ContentsAbbreviations On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses A Note on Dublin Topography and Toponyms A Note on Irish History since 1800 A Note on Currency A Note on Annotations Past A Note on Editions of Ulysses A Note on Joyce's Notes and Manuscripts A Note on the Ulysses Schemata A Note on the Title Ulysses A Note on the Present Project and Acknowledgements 1: 'Telemachus' 2: 'Nestor' 3: 'Proteus' 4: 'Calypso' 5: 'Lotus Eaters' 6: 'Hades' 7: 'Aeolus' 8: 'Lestrygonians' 9: 'Scylla and Charybdis' 10: 'Wandering Rocks' 11: 'Sirens' 12: 'Cyclops' 13: 'Nausicaa' 14: 'Oxen of the Sun' 15: 'Circe' 16: 'Eumaeus' 17: 'Ithaca' 18: 'Penelope' Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing of 'Oxen of the Sun' Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA Wall Street Journal Book of the Year for 2015 (selected by Adam Thirlwell) Winner of the 2015 Morris D. Forkosch Book Prize, Journal of the History of Ideas Winner of the 18th Annual (2016) Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University A New Statesman Book of the Year for 2015 (selected by Robert Macfarlane) One of Flavorwire's 10 Must-Read Academic Books for 2015 One of the Slate Book Review's Overlooked Books of 2015 One of The Paris Review's Staff Picks for 2015 (selected by Lorin Stein) "An important book, a brilliant book, an exasperating book... In The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933-1973, the gifted essayist Mark Greif, who reveals himself to be also a skillful historian of ideas, charts the history of the 20th-century reckonings with the definition of 'man.'"--Leon Wieseltier, New York Times Book Review "In careful, thoughtful, and elegant prose reminiscent of Lionel Trilling and Edmund Wilson, Greif gives a brilliant exploration of the philosophical field that developed in the middle decades of the 20th century and echoes even up to our own time... Greif's dazzling, must read analysis offers luminous insights into midcentury American understandings of humanity and its relevance to the present."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "[A]n important new study of mid-century intellectual life."--Louis Menand, New Yorker "Bracingly ambitious... [He is] a stimulating literary critic."--Pankaj Mishra, London Review of Books "I will not insult [Mark] Greif by calling him a public intellectual. He is an intellectual, full-stop... An intellectual is not an academic who can write plain or a journalist who can write smart, but something else altogether... Greif's history turns out to be a prehistory--our prehistory."--William Deresiewicz, Harper's "[The Age of the Crisis of Man is] a brilliant contribution to the history of ideas, one of the rare books that reshapes the present by reinterpreting the past."--Adam Kirsch, Tablet "[E]xhilarating...By 'the discourse of man' Greif means the vast midcentury literature on human dignity, from Being and Nothingness, to the 'Family of Man' photo exhibition, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--a discourse that Greif interrogates with verve, erudition, sympathy, and suspicion, and that he follows into the fiction of our time."--Lorin Stein, Paris Review "It is encouraging to come across the work of a young scholar that offers clear-eyed insight into the origins of the current malaise, while also exemplifying what a fresh contribution to humanistic study might look like today... [A]mbitious and deeply researched."--Christopher Benfey, New York Review of Books "[W]ith this brilliant book Greif is restarting the project of 're-enlightenment,' pointing us toward ... the spiritual daylight of the present--where literary purposes and political agendas are moments on an intellectual continuum, not the terms of an either/or choice."--James Livingston, Bookforum "A striking construction, bringing together an array of thinkers and intellectual traditions whose synchronicity has gone largely unremarked."--David Simspon, New Left Review "Sometimes a work of cultural history surprises and enlightens simply by naming what we had not thought required a name. [Such is] Mark Greif's revelatory study of mid-20th -century humanism."--Brian Dillon, Guardian (UK) "A stunning intellectual history of the 20th century... [W]hat this book really offers is a new way of thinking about thinking, and the particular thinking that fiction can do."--Adam Thirlwell, Wall Street Journal "[O]ne of the most accessibly intelligent and provocative looks at a fascinating period in American intellectual life. Read it, if only for Greif's exploration of white Americans' appropriation of the phrase 'The Man.' But also read it for so much more; it will stay with you for a long time."--Kristin Iversen, Brooklyn Magazine "[G]reat detail, buttressed with deep research, presented with great analytic and synthetic skill... Unlike many scholars, he has a heart and isn't afraid to show it."--Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture (Christianity Today) "[E]xhilarating reading... Greif has written a work of real intellectual and moral force."--Anthony Domestico, Commonweal "The Age of the Crisis of Man is an unusual book. It stands out in part fo the grandiosity o f its ambitions: Greif tries to provide an expansive new framework for the midcentury trajectory of American ideas... A founding editor of n+1, he aims to mine the texts of an earlier generation for social philosophies that can serve the political needs of the present day."--Angus Burgin, Dissent "[I]lluminating of the intellectual situation Greif and all of us inhabit... Greif's conclusion: ... know your past, for sure; know that people have tried things that didn't pan out; know your way about contemporary theory, but wear that knowledge lightly; and, most of all, remain playful."--Kevin Mattson, Boston Review "The mastery on display here--the sheer diversity of thinkers explored--is staggering. Some of them will no doubt be familiar to you: Adorno, Jaspers, Foucault, Arendt. Others might prove a little fuzzier: Mortimer Adler, Shulamith Firestone, Sidney Hook. All are deftly woven into the fabric of crisis discourse--both the juicy rivalries and strange bedfellows--often with dazzling results... A tour de force."--Dustin Illingworth, Brooklyn Rail "Mark Greif's probing new book, The Age of the Crisis of Man, ... allows us to see intellectual culture repeating what are easy to identify, looking back, as hopelessly circular or reductive debates. Greif does a fine job, and a gentle one, describing this."--Christopher Nealon, Public Books "[A] learned exploration of an important debate, which still reverberates in many forms."--Francesca Wade, Prospect (UK) "[The Age of the Crisis of Man] works to uncover a major discourse in American letters, a largely postwar dialogue about the human (or posthuman) condition. It's a formidable project on Greif's part, one that could change the story we tell about intellectual politics in the 20th century."--Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire "[A]n ambitious look at political thought in the 20th century, and how that thought was reflected in the work of several notable American writers... [W]hat emerges is a complex portrait of a literary culture, and the theories that informed it."--Tobias Carroll, Vol. 1 Brooklyn "[F]ascinating and rich... The strength of the book is that although I disagree with much of what he says about the general position his readings of the novelists are engaging, lucid, attractively fresh and critically astute. So if you disagree with my views you should still read the book, and if you agree with me you should too."--Richard Marshall, 3AM Magazine "After reading Greif, one begins to wonder how we could have overlooked what was hiding in plain sight... Greif's book shows just how engaging it can be to glimpse philosophy in its human setting and view fiction as an agent of thought."--Patrick Redding, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Blog "A welcome work that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is serious about understanding twentieth-century thought and culture."--Daniel Wickberg, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Blog "Essayistic in style, brimming with wit and erudition, the book is sui generis in its take on Anglo-American analytical philosophy and human science, demonstrating that ours is by no means a 'unique' nor a 'uniquely bad time.'"--Adriana Neagu, ABC Journal "Greif is undoubtedly right to suggest that 'crisis' was a key theme, and his deft analysis of that theme offers an important correction to the persistent notion that the mid-century was the golden age of technocracy... [O]ne finds in Greif's book spirited, smart, and often surprising explorations of the thought of the period."--Daniel Immerwahr, Modern Intellectual History "Mark Greif's hugely impressive The Age of the Crisis of Man ... is dense, original and authoritative."--Robert Macfarlane, New Statesman "Greif approaches what could be a dry historical subject with a fiction writer's flair for character and narrative pacing, and his inventiveness and sense of wonder never subside. It's a great work of criticism about the idea of greatness, and where we get such ideas."--Evan Kindley, Slate "A tour de force of riveting interdisciplinary history."--James Dawes, Journal of American History "Mark Greif's ambitious study offers a compellingly nuanced and nonetheless comprehensive historical narrative of the inception and ensuing evolution of a crisis discourse which has proven to be instrumental in shaping the intellectual landscape of the United States through several decades."--Peter Csato, Hungarian Journal of English and American StudiesTable of ContentsPreface ix PART I Genesis 1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction The "Crisis of Man" as Obscurity and Re-enlightenment 3 CHAPTER 2 Currents through the War 27 CHAPTER 3 The End of the War and After 61 PART II Transmission 101 CHAPTER 4 Criticism and the Literary Crisis of Man 103 PART III Studies in Fiction 143 CHAPTER 5 Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison Man and History, the Questions 145 CHAPTER 6 Ralph Ellison and Saul Bellow History and Man, the Answers 181 CHAPTER 7 Flannery O'Connor and Faith 204 CHAPTER 8 Thomas Pynchon and Technology 227 PART IV Transmutation 253 CHAPTER 9 The Sixties as Big Bang 255 CHAPTER 10 Universal Philosophy and Antihumanist Theory 281 CONCLUSION Moral History and the Twentieth Century 316 Notes 331 Acknowledgments 401 Index 405

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Book Synopsis''By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots.''The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) is William James''s classic survey of religious belief in its most personal, and often its most heterodox, aspects. Asking questions such as how we define evil to ourselves, the difference between a healthy and a divided mind, the value of saintly behaviour, and what animates and characterizes the mental landscape of sudden conversion, James''s masterpiece stands at a unique moment in the relationship between belief and culture. Faith in institutional religion and dogmatic theology was fading away, and the search for an authentic religion rooted in personality and subjectivity was a project conducted as an urgent necessity. With psychological insight, philosophical rigour, and a determination not to jump to the conclusion that in tracing religion''s mental causes we necessarily diminish its truth or value, in the Varieties James wrote a truly foundational text for modern belief.Matthew Bradley''s wide-ranging new edition examines the ideas that continue to fuel modern debates on atheism and faith. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewOne of the seminal works of philosophy and theology. * Catholic Herald *

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the ideas, groupings and the social tensions that shaped the transformation of life caused by the changes of modernity in art, science, politics and philosophy

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Book SynopsisPacked full of analysis and interpretation, historical background, discussions and commentaries, York Notes will help you get right to the heart of the text you're studying, whether it's poetry, a play or a novel. You'll learn all about the historical context of the piece; find detailed discussions of key passages and characters; learn interesting facts about the text; and discover structures, patterns and themes that you may never have known existed. In the Advanced Notes, specific sections on critical thinking, and advice on how to read critically yourself, enable you to engage with the text in new and different ways. Full glossaries, self-test questions and suggested reading lists will help you fully prepare for your exam, while internet links and references to film, TV, theatre and the arts combine to fully immerse you in your chosen text. York Notes offer an exciting and accessible key to your text, enabling you to develop your ideas and transform your stu

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Book SynopsisUlrika Maude s Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Bristol, where she also directs the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science. Her publications include Beckett, Technology and the Body (2009), Beckett and Phenomenology (2009) and The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature (2015).Mark Nixon is Associate Professor in Modern Literature at the University of Reading, UK. He is Co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Beckett Studies and Co-Director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.Trade ReviewIn the short but excellent ‘Resources’ section, Alex Pestell and Sean Pryor cover key terms from ‘avant-garde’ to ‘vers libre’ - and include valuable summaries of how concepts such as ‘fascism’, ‘primitivism’, ‘race’ and ‘high modernism’ shape how we think about modernist literature - while an extensive annotated bibliography of major works of criticism provides a good grounding for students wishing to explore the subject further. * Times Literary Supplement *The Bloomsbury Companion to Modernist Literature, edited by Ulrika Maude and Mark Nixon, provides fresh insights. By viewing Modernist Literature through the prism of seemingly unrelated disciplines, such as economics, the Theory of Relativity, and neurology, the Bloomsbury Companion … reveals research synergies and provides opportunities for discovery … While geared towards the more advanced researcher, this book would certainly assist those less familiar with Modernist Literature when taking those first steps from casual readership into research. The Bloomsbury Companion to Modernist Literature makes it new and keeps it real. * American Reference Books Annual *[These] assembled essays and resources comprise an impressive array of frequently challenging, illuminating scholarship … [This] Companion does not settle for simply being a guide to existing knowledge, but instead blazes exciting new trails for the rest of us to follow. * Modern Language Review *The book as a whole illustrates superbly what Emily Hayman and Pericles Lewis refer to as “the persistence of modernism". * Recherche Littéraire *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Contributors 1. Introduction, Ulrika Maude Part I: Defining the Field and Research Issues The Modernist Everyday 2. Anything but a Clean Relationship: Modernism and the Everyday, Scott McCracken 3. Geographies of Modernism, Andrew Thacker 4. Modernism and Language Scepticism, Shane Weller 5. Modernism and Emotion, Kirsty Martin 6. Myth and Religion in Modernist Literature, Michael Bell The Arts and Cultures of Modernism 7. Modernism and Music, Tim Armstrong 8. Modernism and the Visual Arts: Kant, Bergson, Beckett, Conor Carville 9. Modernist Literature and Film, Laura Marcus 10. Modernism and Popular Culture, Lawrence Rainey 11. Modernist Magazines, Faith Binckes 12. Minding Manuscripts: Modernism, Genetic Criticism and Intertextual Cognition, Dirk Van Hulle The Sciences and Technologies of Modernism 13. Einstein, Relativity and Literary Modernism, Paul Sheehan 14. Modernism, Sexuality and Gender, Jana Funke 15. Modernism, Neurology and the Invention of Psychoanalysis Ulrika Maude 16. Modernism, Psychoanalysis and other Psychologies, Laura Salisbury 17. Modernism and Technology, Julian Murphet The Geopolitics and Economics of Modernism 18. Can there be a Global Modernism? Emily Hayman and Pericles Lewis 19. A Departure from Modernism: Stylistic Strategies in Modern Peripheral Literatures as Symptom, Mediation and Critique of Modernity, Benita Parry 20. Modernist Literature and Politics, Tyrus Miller 21. A New Sense of Value: Modernism and Economics, Ronald Schleifer Part II: Resources 22. A to Z of Key Words, Alex Pestell and Sean Pryor 23. Annotated Bibliography, Alexander Howard Chronology Index

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Book SynopsisNo modern Japanese writer was more idolized than Shiga Naoya. This work showcases the art of this writer who is often called "the god of the Japanese short story."Trade Review[Shiga wrote] a number of short stories that are nearly perfect in their simplicity, directness, and mastery of subject matter. -- Hiraoki Sato The New York Times

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Book SynopsisThe most supportive, easy-to-use and focussed literature guides to help your students understand the texts they are studying at GCSE and A LevelTable of Contents Part 1: Introduction Part 2: The Text Part 3: Critical Approaches Part 4: Critical History Part 5: Background Further Reading Literacy Terms

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Book SynopsisPure Pleasure gives us fifty of the most enjoyable books of the twentieth century, chosen on a single principle - the pleasure they inspire. Pure Pleasure is an idiosyncratic antidote to the ''definitive'' lists of twentieth-century classics. John Carey, one of Britain''s most respected literary critics, has unearthed some overlooked gems which show the century''s great authors in a new light. The result is a wonderful and witty guide for anyone looking for new recommendations or for a discussion of books they already know and love. First published weekly in the Sunday Times as ''John Carey''s Books of the Century'', the accompanying essays generated intense reader interest, and this collection includes a discussion of the letters of applause, outrage, debate and dissent they provoked.

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Book SynopsisThis critical study covers the whole range of Dylan Thomas's writing, both poetry and prose, in an accessible appraisal of the work and achievement of a major and dynamic poet. It interrelates the man and his national-cultural background by defining in detail the Welshness of his poetic temperament and critical attitudes, as both man and poet. At the same time, it illustrates Thomas's wide knowledge of and impact on the long and varied tradition of poetry in English. In that connection, it delineates and delimits Thomas's relationship to surrealism, compares and contrasts his work with that of other poets of the 1930s and 1940s, and shows how its power survives his early death in 1953, in the decade of the 'Movement' poets and beyond. A major aspect of this book is the close textual analysis of the works quoted; it explores anew the recognition due to the man who wrote the work, and helps us to separate the intrinsic achievement of the work from the foisted perceptions of the 'legend'.Trade ReviewWalford Davies's sympathetic introduction to the character and writing of Dylan Thomas, one of the great twentieth-century poets, is illuminating for new or experienced readers. His appraisal and close readings are warmly personal, rooted in Welsh literary and social culture. - Prof. Barbara Hardy, Professor of English Literature Emeritus, University of London Walford Davies displays commendable but misplaced modesty in calling this extensively revised centenary edition of his celebrated study of Dylan Thomas an 'essay'. It is, rather, a sustained, even ecstatic meditation on the meaning of the life and the work of one of the great English language writers of the twentieth century. The book performs a miracle of compression in distilling a lifetime's learning and reflection into manageable space and offering elegant readings not only of Thomas's key writings in poetry, fiction and broadcast media but of his biographical and cultural contexts. The poet's debt to the Welsh-speaking, Non-Conformist milieu of his immediate ancestry is sensitively illuminated, and his place in the British poetry of his time and in the long history of verse in English from Chaucer to Heaney delineated with formidable skill and erudition. The volume is in the best sense a work of advocacy - and one as dapper, witty and unfanatical as it is impassioned. - Prof. Patrick Crotty, University of AberdeenTable of Contents1 'Begin at the beginning': introductory 2 'The sideboard fruit, the ferns': the poet in suburbia 3 'The loud hill of Wales': theWelshness of the work 4 'I'll put them all in a story by and by': aspects of the prose 5 'Now my saying shall be my undoing': the need to change 6 'Criss-cross rhythms': comparisons of earlier and later poems 77 7 'Ann's bard on a raised hearth': towards 'After the funeral (In Memory of Ann Jones)' 8 'Mostly bare I would lie down': a creative decade ends in war 9 'Arc-lamped thrown back upon the cutting flood'; 'This unbelievable lack of wires': wartime, film work, broadcasts 98 10 'We hid our fears in that murdering breath': the war elegies 11 'Parables of sun light': towards 'Poem in October', 'Fern Hill', 'Do not go gentle into that good night' and beyond

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Book SynopsisStates of Disconnect examines the breakdown of transnationalism through readings of literary texts that express aversion to pairing ideas of China and India. Adhira Mangalagiri proposes the concept of “disconnect”: a crisis of transnationalism perceptible in moments when a connection is severed, interrupted, or disavowed.Trade ReviewHow does one reckon with the conditions of comparison in the act of comparison? Reading twentieth-century Chinese and Hindi texts side by side or against each other, this book offers a fascinating account of literary relations between China and India with invaluable insights on rupture, repulsion, and crisis of understanding. A bold experiment in method. -- Lydia Liu, Columbia UniversityThis deeply inspiring and important book explores the gray zones of literary relations. States of Disconnect subjects the easy pair of India and China to stringent scrutiny and in the process offers a new vocabulary and critical tools for comparative literature in a world full of tension and strife. -- Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of LondonStates of Disconnect offers a novel approach by exploring how conditions of war, diplomatic breakdown, and international friction factor non-comparability into cross-cultural interpretation and genres of transnational literacy. Mangalagiri puts the brakes on forms of borderless criticism that homogenize distinct knowledge worlds and globalize literary learning without sufficient attention to the politics of difference. -- Emily Apter, New York UniversityDaring to step into a territory where few humanist scholars of China-India relations have tread, Mangalagiri focuses on the ‘disconnect’ and negativity that characterizes a great deal of this relationship in the modern literary realm. She demonstrates persuasively that the first step in literature is to confront and understand the disconnect and imagine the ethical possibilities of the relationship from this fuller understanding. -- Prasenjit Duara, Duke UniversityIn States of Disconnect, Mangalagiri portrays how China and India encountered each other against the global background of war and peace, imperialism and nationalism, and, above all, transculturation and its disavowal. Working against the grain of conventional modernity studies, States of Disconnect probes the ways in which circulation falls short and connectivity stumbles, as well as the options of alternative modernities arising therefrom. -- David Der-wei Wang, Harvard UniversityStates of Disconnect is a pioneering work of scholarship. It shifts the gaze to cultural production and emphasizes the ways in which the acts of writing and reading in both countries, and the views each developed of the other in these cultural practices, did not necessarily follow the prevailing political vicissitudes of the transnational relationship. -- Laura Brueck, author of Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit LiteratureStates of Disconnect aims at no less than reshaping the paradigm of comparison and supplying a critical vocabulary for a new ethics of transnational relation. * MCLC Resource Center *Deeply serious in its disciplinary-cum-ethical commitments and confident in the possibilities afforded by critical reading [. . .], States of Disconnect is ultimately as inspiring as it is generative. * Critical Inquiry *Table of ContentsNote on Transliteration and TranslationIntroduction1. Anatomy of Antagonism: The Indian Policeman in Chinese Literature2. Revolution Redux: Agyeya’s China Stories3. Dialogue and Its Discontents: 1950s Cultural Diplomacy Untold4. Word and World in Crisis: Hindi Texts of 19625. On Correspondence: Lu Xun and PremchandConclusion: A Comparatist’s Guide to DisconnectAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisRethinks modernism as a category by focusing on little-known late-modernist groupings of authors.

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Book SynopsisSylvia Plath (1932-1963) was one of the writers who defined the course of twentieth-century poetry. Alongside a selection of photographs and Plath's own drawings, they masterfully contextualise what the pages disclose.This later correspondence witnesses Plath and Hughes becoming major, influential contemporary writers, as it happened.

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Book SynopsisMining the borderlands where history meets literature in Britain and Europe as well as America, this book shows how the imminence and outbreak of World War II ignited the imaginations of writers ranging from Ernest Hemingway, W.H. Auden, and James Joyce to Bertolt Brecht, Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, and Irène Némirovsky. Taking its cue from Percy Shelley's dictum that great writers are to some extent created by the age in which they live, this book shows how much the politics and warfare of the years from 1939 to 1941 drove the literature of this period. Its novels, poems, and plays differ radically from histories of World War II becausebesides being works of imagination-- they are largely products of a particular stage in the author's life as well as of a time at which no one knew how the war would end. This is the first comprehensive study of the impact of the outbreak of the Second World War on the literary work of American, English, and European writers during it

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Book SynopsisWhen is seduction about more than just sex? In this brilliantly original history, Clement Knox explores these questions as well as the philosophy, legality, politics, art and literature of a force that underwrites our world.In the first history of its kind, Clement Knox reassesses our idea of seduction in a narrative that moves from Casanova's pursuit of pleasure, to America's racialised seduction laws, to the Nazi propaganda designed to stoke sexual panic, and up to #MeToo.Modern, big-thinking and enormously entertaining, Knox offers an extraordinary range of stories to chart the many guises of seduction, showing that our ideas about desire, courtship, and power have always developed in step with a changing world.Trade Review‘Clement Knox has mastered the art of reader seduction with his intriguing and expertly woven web of gripping stories and insights. Strange Antics will hold the reader in its thrall’Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five ‘Erudite yet engaging … Though ambitious in its scope it is endlessly surprising in the individual stories it unearths. I found this Pandora’s box of sexual mores through the ages both thought-provoking and hugely entertaining’Cathy Newman ‘Big and bold … His history of seduction examines a variety of narratives from scandalous memoirs to legal procedure … Impressive … There is much to praise here’Sunday Times ‘A work of narrative nonfiction à la mode. Each chapter focuses on a single individual … Their lives and work are then used to elucidate the grander historical narrative … A blistering finale, drawing together themes of sexual politics, economics, law and the ordinary human desire for love and companionship into a vision of our present condition’Times ‘Seduction is the subject of films and fiction, legal cases and human resources headaches – and yet its history has never been written. Knox rectifies this omission with this absorbing account … Erudite and above all entertaining’Tatler ‘There is much to enjoy in Clement Knox’s ambitious first work … He writes with passion and insight.’i Newspaper ‘A capacious new history of seduction … Produces a clutch of vivid biographical portraits and offers a pacey introduction to some canonical texts.’Guardian ‘Rich history … Full of punchy political insight … Satisfying and interesting … And full of share-worthy anecdotes.’Daily Telegraph ‘Fascinating …Knox is a natural biographer with a flair for unveiling startling anecdotes with evident relish … Exhilarating’New Statesman ‘Extensive and entertaining’Literary Review

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf was a feminist and a bohemian but without her servants cooking, cleaning and keeping house - she might never have managed to write.Mrs Woolf and The Servants explores the hidden history of service. Through Virginia Woolf's extensive diaries and letters and brilliant detective work, Alison Light chronicles the lives of those forgotten women who worked behind the scenes in Bloomsbury, and their fraught relations with one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.Trade ReviewFascinating, beautifully written and meticulously researched * Literary Review *An absorbing investigation, serious, radical and feminist in its politics, entertaining in its delivery * The Independent *Offers us an invaluable glimpse into the hidden history of domestic service in an absorbing narrative, beautifully written with the sensibility of a poet * The Times *A compelling portrait of how rich and poor women of this time were locked into a strange and pernicious symbiosis, and a vital warning against social inequality * Telegraph *An absorbing investigation, serious, radical and feminist in its politics, entertaining in its delivery * The Independent *

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Book SynopsisNobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck is remembered as one of the greatest and best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. His complete works are available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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Book SynopsisA new collection of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories--from his first appearance in The Little White Bird to the final version of the Peter Pan play we know today.Table of ContentsThe Little White Bird Anon: A Play Peter and Wendy Scenario for a Proposed Film of Peter Pan Peter Pan Appendix 1: On the Acting of a Fairy Play Appendix 2: When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought Appendix 3: The Blot on Peter Pan Appendix 4: Captain Hook at Eton Notes

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Book SynopsisDublin is one of the world''s great literary cities, immortalized in works by some of the most celebrated international authors. It is a city of warmth and character, which combines the richest of histories with a vibrant contemporary edge, and which welcomes millions of people to its streets each year. In addition to being Ireland''s capital city, Dublin is a city with a proud European identity and with long-established, dynamic links with the rest of the world. Dublin Tales comprises an exciting selection of stories from across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries which are illustrative of this. The stories in Dublin Tales are variously vibrant, evocative, humorous, and diverse, and engage in different ways with Dublin''s history, its culture, its cityscape, and its people. It includes stories by writers who are intimately associated with the city (James Joyce and Brendan Behan), as well as by some of the most acclaimed Irish authors of the twentieth century (Elizabeth Bowen, Liam O''Flaherty, William Trevor, John McGahern, and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne). Less familiar authors are also included, as are specially commissioned stories from some of the most talented younger writers writing today (Caitriona Lally, Kevin Power, and Melatu Uche Okorie). Dublin Tales also includes bilingual versions of two stories which were originally written in the Irish language by Dara Ó Conaola and Caitlín Nic Íomhair, which have been specially translated into English for this startlingly original new book.Trade ReviewDublin Tales is home to a wide range of historical and present-day perspectives on the place...Eve Patten and Paul Delaney...navigate in a beautifully written introduction an awareness of the kitschy use of fictional landmarks for attracting visitors, while producing a real map of Dublin as a literary metropolis. * Catherine Toal, Irish Times *Dublin's many faces brought to life in eclectic collection of stories...Delaney and Patten's clear vision and painstaking selection of work creates a Janus-faced Dublin, sometimes wayward and sometimes constant, occasionally brutal and occasionally compassionate, above all capable of flicking from the familiar to the terrifying in a heartbeat. * Martina Devlin, Irish Independent *An engrossing, often moving, and very powerful anthology which really gets to the heart of its subject. I've enjoyed all of the 'Tales' collection from OUP, and this is a worthy addition - highly recommended! * Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings *A curated anthology of short fiction celebrates the city of Dublin as literary setting and muse. * The Booklist *Table of ContentsEditors' Introduction 1: George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright): Mammy 2: James Joyce: Two Gallants 3: Liam O'Flaherty: The Sniper 4: Elizabeth Bowen: Unwelcome Idea 5: James Stephens: A Rhinoceros, Some Ladies, and a Horse 6: Brendan Behan: The Confirmation Suit 7: John McGahern: Sierra Leone 8: Val Mulkerns: Four Green Fields 9: Dara Ó Conaola: I nGleic (In a Pickle) 10: William Trevor: Two More Gallants 11: Mary O'Donnell: The Black Church 12: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne: Miss Moffat Goes to Town 13: Mirsad Ibisevic: Emigrant 14: Caitlín Nic Íomhair: Cíocras (Relentless) 15: Melatu Uche Okorie: Arrival 16: Kevin Power: Catastrophe 17: Caitriona Lally: Tramlines

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Book SynopsisDrawing on an ethnographic study of novel readers in Denmark and the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book provides a snapshot of a phenomenal moment in modern history - showing what novels people turned to during the pandemic, how people experienced time during this period, and whether they chose to fill it with reading.Trade ReviewThis brilliantly written and meticulously researched book makes a major new contribution to literary studies. It demonstrates the value and importance of sociological approaches to reading in expanding the methods of the discipline and enabling new evidence-based insights into how lay readers read. It combines this with a sensitivity to text and temporality, narrative and nuance, that surely cannot but be approved of by even the most stalwart defenders of traditional literary critical methods. * Sarah Dillon, Professor of Literature and the Public Humanities, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge *How did the pandemic change our relationship to books? This eagerly awaited study does a deep dive into the role of literature in a time of crisis, looking closely at what and how people read in 2020 and 2021 as well as the times and places in which they picked up a book. The results are fascinating, revealing, and often unexpected * Rita Felski, University of Virginia *Did anyone actually spend the pandemic reading Proust? Find out in this intimate and revealing account of all the ways books kept us company during a time of almost unbearable isolation * Matthew Rubery, Queen Mary University of London *This is an extremely important book, mixing literary theory with qualitative and quantitive data in an innovative way in order to understand how and what we read during the pandemic, and what this means. It provides a vital insight into the life of literature during a crisis * Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway University of London *Overall, the book is a very timely contribution to discussions surrounding the seismic cultural and societal shifts triggered-or merely made visible-by the pandemic. The authors are well aware that their sample can shed light only on a slice of the reading public, but through their in-depth interviews and careful curation of the responses, we are treated to fascinating insights about readers and reading during the pandemic. Readers of the monograph will certainly think back to their own pandemic reading practices (and perhaps glance at their pandemic reading diaries?) as they peruse the pages of this tome. * Corinna Norrick-Rühl, University of Münster, Germany *Table of ContentsThe Readers Introduction 1: Time and What to Do in It 2: Plague Literature and the Question of Allegory 3: The Novel of Confinement 4: Old Books in New Times 5: Reading Outdoors 6: Reading Summer in Summer 2020 7: Reading the Romance 8: Reading About Race 9: Long Reads Appendix: The Surveys

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewImmensely rewarding... [Lipscomb] traces each woman's life touchingly, from a family background... through decades of work, to their most significant achievements... The book also works as a very readable introduction to Western moral philosophy. * Katie Barron *[the book] had me hooked for weeks * Tom Stoppard, Books of the Year 2022, Times Literary Supplement *Revelatory * , Prospect, Books of the Year 2021 *[a] rich mixture of biography and philosophy... [Lipscomb] skilfully conveys how scientistic philosophers plunged ethics into the subjectivity and delusoriness they sought to avoid, and how four female philosophers helped steer it towards a more human, socially objective realism. * Jane O'Grady, The Daily Telegraph *What Lipscomb's book does well is to paint a vivid and touching picture of the friendships between these four women, as they evolved through their lives. * Kate Manne, Times Literary Supplement *Benjamin Lipscomb's new group biography, The Women Are Up to Something, is a fascinating exploration of their life and thought... Lipscomb paints a vivid portrait not only of them as people, but also a moment in British philosophy too often told through the male line... Lipscomb's book succeeds wonderfully in presenting a particular era in philosophy, and the huge influence of, in particular, Anscombe and Foot in the field of ethics... Lipscomb is not only a powerful advocate for these thinkers, but he also tells their story with a combination of thoroughness and humour. His evocation of their cultural milieu, and the way each of them grappled with their ideas as well as with their world, is both adept and entertaining. * Peter Salmon, Prospect *A wonderful story of four brilliant women whose audaciously unfashionable thought (as well as their attentive teaching and mentorship) has changed the face of the discipline.It is also a delightful story of love, friendship and eccentricity. * Cathy Mason, Literary Review *[Lipscomb] has produced a superior work of personal and intellectual history, sensitive and finely written. * Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books *Professor Lipscomb's ingenious method is to construct a multiple intellectual biography... The intertwined lives of these four, very remarkable women - the sheer intensity of their intellectual quests and of their emotional attachments, their contrasting characters and differing approaches to philosophy, their unifying mission to rescue ethics from the barren plateaus upon which it had been stranded by logical positivism and existentialism - all of this, Lipscomb brings to life in a virtuoso performance of its own, combining clear exposition of often complicated philosophical positions with an emotionally intelligent and highly readable example of the biographer's art. * Oliver Letwin, The Tablet *A welcome corrective to a narrative that centers men at the heart of post-war Oxford philosophy...fascinating and important...The biographical aspect of Lipscomb's book is excellent...These stories are interesting for their own sake, but also heartening for women who suffer still today from such feelings and problems. * Sheryl Misak, Philosopher's Magazine *Lipscomb draws from an impressive collection of sources to give us an insight into the lives, characters, and work of these four brilliant women, both showing how their ideas developed through their life experiences, and painting a very vivid picture of Oxford philosophy in the first half of the past century... highly recommended. The narrative is captivating and easily accessible to the general reader... thought-provoking and absorbing... an important contribution to the increasing number of books that aim to unearth the neglected contributions of women to philosophy. * Elly Vintiadis, The Philosopher *Lipscomb's subjects are depicted in whirlwind portraits of emotional effusiveness, bohemian squalor, and general eccentricity. The book is scattered with delightful anecdotes...[it] entails a celebration of pluralism. It reminds us of the value of listening to others, of entertaining and attending to a heteroglossia of ideas, attitudes, and opinions... it stands out as a timely reminder of how to see nuance in a polarised world. * Cora MacGregor, Oxford Review of Books *Enthralling highly readable Lipscomb has cast his net very wide in his research and managed to interview or correspond with a huge number of people with relevant memories, some of them alas no longer with us. The resulting slice of intellectual history, with its lively and sympathetic portraits of these path-breaking women, fully bears out the back-cover blurb from Anthony Kenny, who confirms the authenticity of the books background and praises it as compulsively readable. Other readers, even those without a background in philosophy, will surely agree. * Lesley Brown, Oxford Magazine *[A] refreshing group biography... Lipscomb keeps things centered on [the] friendship, making powerful use of newly opened archives and the philosophers' unpublished correspondence, as when he brings Oxford to life using Murdoch's letters to friends. This credible corrective couldn't have arrived at a better time. * , Publishers Weekly *Offers engaging accounts of the lives and writings of [these four] women tells stories that rival in passion and intrigue anything that Elena Ferrantes Neapolitan Novels have to offer and contain much to interest specialists as well as general readers. * Alice Crary, Boston Review *The story is fascinating. The Women Are Up to Something is certainly well worth reading. * Bárbara Mujica, Washington Independent Review of Books *Benjamin Lipscomb paints in vivid colours the encounter and long-lasting friendship between Elisabeth Anscombe, Philipa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. * Marie Daouda, Engelsberg Ideas *This book tells [these women's] fascinating and intertwined personal stories, describes well the contemporary context and chronicles the success of women in a determinedly male world. It is just lovely to read. * Christine King, Progressive Voices *The Women Are Up To Something, is a more conventional biography of these same four women. Although it inevitably covers much of the same ground as Metaphysical Animals, it does so in a more ortho- dox, more objective,...He also provides much more biographical and philosophical detail about the quartet's main protagonist, R.M. Hare, tracing his philosophical development from the rather mystical work he wrote as a POW, which he never published, through to his final endorsement of a version of utilitarianism. All of this makes Lipscomb's book a good companion volume to Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman. * Marie McGinn, Society *With the publication of The Women Are Up to Something, Benjamin Lipscomb has provided us with a work of original scholarship, a gripping narrative, and a compelling argument about a key period in twentieth century moral philosophy * John Berkman, The Heythrop Journal *This book is most appropriate for the philosophy student or academic, yet its many anecdotes and insights into the personal lives and decisions of these brilliant women demonstrate that philosophical movements, broad cultural currents, and life-and-death decisions are still made by real people who live real lives and who make choices in the quiet of their consciences. * John M. DeJak, Chronicles *Lipscomb's book is an admirably researched piece of scholarship, and compulsively readable... The style and content make this an attractive introduction for newcomers interested in learning something about both their philosophical views and their lives, and it could be a helpful companion to both the interested layperson as well as to students. What is most valuable about the book, in my view, is the rich and evocative picture one gets of the lives of these four women. * Nicholas Sparks, Genealogies of Modernity *This book is a window into the intellectually and socially intense lives of four significant women in British philosophical and literary history...It is the kind of book that makes its readers want to delve more deeply into its subject matter and that really makes it a very worthwhile read indeed. * Margaret Hickey, GRIPT *.. offer more than philosophies in the feminine: a portrait of thought in the central decades of yestercentury. * , ArquitecturaViva 245 *This well written book is a window into the intellectually and socially intense lives of four significant women in British philosophical and literary history. * Margaret Hickey, Position Papers *Lipscomb gives an excellent summary of the body and trajectory of each woman's individual work...[the book] offer[s] an important and rare look into the role of community and friendship in shaping thought, belief, and life. * Amy Frykholm, Christian Century *Lipscomb has told a wonderful story - a story that had to be told...he provides the first sustained engagement with the contribution of these women, their lives and ideas... This is a book that will engage those with an interest in the history of philosophy and ethics, particularly those who welcome the highlighting of the significant but often hidden contribution of women in this field. * Janet Dyson, REtoday magazine *In showing us some of the virtues that make possible cooperation across difference, Lipscombs book does a valuable service. If we can learn from it, the quality of public debate and discussionon social media, in publications, and in the academycould be greatly improved. * Peter Blair, FareForward *The Women Are Up to Something is certainly a good read, and a fine work of intellectual history (and a bit more) that will surely leave many readers wanting to know even more about the women, their work, and 1940s Oxford. * , Complete Review *Four women, friends from studying at Oxford during and after the second world war, revolutionized the field of moral philosophy. At male-dominated Oxford, live issues of moral philosophy had for long been as unheard as the voices of women philosophers. Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch developed their positions in distinct but overlapping ways, fortified by lasting and sustaining friendships. The difference they made brought about the single biggest change in moral philosophy for over a century, replacing arid scholasticism with rich discussions of goodness, virtue, and character. This lively and well-informed book tells us how the intertwined lives of four women philosophers also tell us the story of moral philosophy waking up after a long dogmatic slumber. It's a wonderful story which will keep any reader turning the pages. * Julia Annas, Regents Professor Emerita, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona *This is a compulsively readable book about a remarkable quartet of women who kept philosophy alive in Oxford during the second world war, and who gave it a new direction after the postwar return of the men. As a survivor of the main period of this story I can attest to the authenticity of its background, and I relished the vivid portraits of each of the heroines. It is a book which will fascinate not only those with an interest in the history of philosophy, but even more those who welcome women's major contributions to fields traditionally the preserve of men. * Sir Anthony Kenny, Emeritus Fellow, St John's College, University of Oxford *Four of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century were friends at Oxford during World War II; they were women in a field still dominated by men; and they rebelled against a picture of ethics as the play of subjective attitudes, values to be set against the hard facts of science. Benjamin Lipscomb's book about Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch is absorbing, personal, and intellectually thrilling--at once a vivid recreation of a deep philosophical friendship and a timely defence of objectivity in ethics. I wish I had written it! * Kieran Setiya, Professor of Philosophy, MIT *Table of ContentsTwo Notes Preface Chapter 1 - Facts and Values Chapter 2 - Oxford in Wartime Chapter 3 - Daughters of 1919 Chapter 4 - The Coming Philosophers Chapter 5 - Murdoch's Diagnosis Chapter 6 - Elizabeth Anscombe versus the World Chapter 7 - The Somerville Senior Common Room Chapter 8 - Slipping Out Over the Wall Chapter 9 - Time, Like the Sea...

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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.

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Book SynopsisThis volume gathers a selection of Edward Thomas's critical writings on poetry from the period 1899 to 1907.Trade ReviewLongley, more effectively than any other of Thomas's interpreters, has introduced him to a wider audience while setting a high scholarly standard in her edition of his poems. * Andrew Motion, TLS *Table of ContentsAbbreviations Textual Note Introduction Writings on Poetry Appendix: Contemporary Poets Reviewed by Edward Thomas Chronology Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisExplores W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound's relationship as played out against the backdrop of Mussolini's Italy in the 1920s and 1930s and shows how Yeats, Pound, and others in their Italian network developed a late modernist style aimed at effecting world change.Trade ReviewThe Poets of Rapallo is a work that students and established scholars of modernism will never fail to find less than stimulating ... Without a doubt, it will provoke lively debate and discussion within academic circles for some time to come: between those who agree with, and those who dispute some of its contentions. * Graham Price, Irish Studies Review *A fresh, insightful literary history. * L. Simon, CHOICE *Meticulously researched and clearly and comprehensibly written. * Brian Maye, Irish Times *The most valuable reading Arrington offers is of the works by Pound's long-neglected wife, Dorothy... Arrington convincingly draws out the parallels between Dorothy's paintings of Roman architecture and the fascist ideal of a 'return to order'. * Daniel Swift, Literary Review *[A] beautifully produced and meticulously researched book ... The weight of material associated with the women of the group is valuable and fascinating [and] an important balance to the misogynistic, homophobic and masculinist influence of Pound. * William Wall, Dublin Review of Books *a fascinating, intricate study of Pound's first steps on the road to perdition, and the cast of fellow travelers, Yeats among them, who went part of the way with him and then covered their tracks. * Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal *This book has a depth of detail and breadth of reference that will make it invaluable for those already familiar with intellectual currents between the wars... the theme of friendship disavowed speaks painfully to our times. Arrington brilliantly traces the toing and froing between rage and affectionate loyalty, and the way members of the group accommodated eccentricity, suspending judgement - until they couldn't. * Noonie Minogue, The Tablet *A fresh, insightful literary history. Highly recommended. * L. Simon, CHOICE *Lauren Arrington is a careful, nuanced scholar, weighing words carefully. * David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express *Arrington's archival research is especially impressive, and the unpublished correspondence and other drafts that she has uncovered flesh out the frequently fractious relationships between her protagonists... [The Poets of Rapallo is] a sharp, controlled study of an influential literary network, and of shifting debates about art and politics, in a country descending into political hell. * Sean Pryor, Australian Book Review *Lauren Arrington writes a literary history at once super-informed and consistently surprising, even to those who think they know the territory. Ezra Pound's colony-village-retreat-beachhead-Utopia-publishing venture at Rapallo, under Arrington's scholarly scrutiny—and in her welcome, lucid prose—turns out to be the semi-hidden hinge for modernist journals, for Basil Bunting (who did more work there than Bunting fans suppose), and above all for the later intellectual and artistic developments in the work of W. B. Yeats. Ballads, collaborations, the afterlife of Robert Burns, and—most of all—the still-contested legacies of Italian fascism shape Arrington's persuasive introductions and discussions, while contested or underappreciated artists and writers—Aldington, Stokes, and especially Dorothy (Shakespeare) Pound—receive their moments in the Italian sun. This is a book to recommend. * Stephanie Burt, Professor of English at Harvard University *This is essential reading on Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats. It is also indispensable in its balanced approach to the wider coterie drawn to Pound in Rapallo, including Richard Aldington and the younger poets Zukofsky and Bunting. Of particular value is the book's focus on the women of the group—Dorothy Pound and George Yeats, among others, are given their due as individuals—as culpable as the men in their engagement with fascist aesthetics. Arrington deftly balances lively biography with an astute contribution to debates on Late Modernism. This book presents its impressive and extensive research in a clear and scrupulous manner, offering valuable arguments and opening doors to an objective and fuller understanding of fascism and modern art. The result is often discomforting, at times devastating, and always enormously readable. * Alan Gillis, The University of Edinburgh *The Poets of Rapallo was a pleasure to read. Wonderful phrasings punctuate Arrington's prose throughout. * David Ben-Merre, State University of New York, Buffalo State College , ALH Online Review *The Poets of Rapallo, it is worth mentioning that it is alive with literary gossip and intriguing background stories of affairs and friendships, rumours and scandals, offering comic relief from the serious matters of racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and rightwing politics that the book is otherwise preoccupied with... This broad-based approach to a niche subject makes the book appealing to a wide range of readership. * Ashim Dutta, Department of English, University of Dhaka *Table of ContentsA Brief Chronology of Comings and Goings 1: The Roads to Rapallo 2: Shell-Shocked Walt Whitmans 3: Primavera 1928 4: Singing School 5: Making Living History 6: Accounting for Rapallo Selected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe early Middle Ages provided twentieth-century poets with the material to re-imagine and rework local, religious, and national identities in their writing. Poet of the Medieval Modern focuses on a key figure within this tradition, the Anglo-Welsh poet and artist David Jones (1895-1974): representing the first extended study of the influence of early medieval English culture and history on Jones and his novel-length late modernist poem The Anathemata (1952). Jones''s second major poetic project after In Parenthesis (1937), The Anathemata fuses Jones''s visual and verbal arts to write a Catholic history of Britain as told through the history of man-as-artist. Drawing on unpublished archival material including manuscripts, sketches, correspondence, and, most significantly, the marginalia from David Jones''s Library, this volume reads with Jones in order to trouble the distinction between poetry and scholarship. Placing this underappreciated figure firmly at the centre of new developmentTrade ReviewPoet of the Medieval Modern is a welcome and necessary study of how Old English language and history enabled Jones to think through his artistic, religious, and cultural preoccupations. * Paul Robichaud, Albertus Magnus College, Modern Philology *Poet of the Medieval Modern is an impressive and worthwhile read for its original archival research,...While this monograph will most deeply interest Jones scholars, other readers interested in modernist engagements with early medieval texts and modernist re-imaginings of history will find themselves rewarded with fresh insights into both topics through the extraordinary depth of Jones's poetry. * Journal of Modern Literature *Table of ContentsIntroduction: 'Accidents of long past history': Medieval Modern Anglo-Welsh Identities 1: Reading with David Jones: The Anglo-Saxon Library and the Palimpsest of the Poem 2: An Alfredian Reading Project: The Literary Preface and the Reshaping of a British Catholic Community 3: A Poetic Historiography of the Early English Settlements: Reading History with David Jones in 'Angle-Land' 4: 'He'll latin-runes tellan in his horror-coat standing': Saint Guthlac and the Lost Narrative of the Britons in the Early Medieval Fenland 5: 'The Axile Tree': Northumbria, Anglo-Welsh Christian Tradition, and the Ruthwell Monument Conclusion Appendix 1: The Anglo-Saxon Library Appendix 2: Compounds with Old English Roots in The Anathemata Appendix 3: Lines 39-41 of The Dream of the Rood cited in correspondence Appendix 4: Extracts from two letters on the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century and the Augustinian Conversion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis unusual book explores the historical assumptions at work in the style of literary criticism that came to dominate English studies in the twentieth century. Stefan Collini shows how the work of critics renowned for their close attention to ''the words on the page'' was in practice bound up with claims about the nature and direction of historical change, the interpretation of the national past, and the scholarship of earlier historians. Among the major figures examined in detail are T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis, William Empson, and Raymond Williams, while there are also original discussions of such figures as Basil Willey, L.C. Knights, Q.D. Leavis, and Richard Hoggart. The Nostalgic Imagination argues that in the period between Eliot''s The Sacred Wood and Williams''s The Long Revolution, the writings of such critics came to occupy the cultural space left by academic history''s retreat into specialized, archive-bound monographs. Their work challenged the assumptions of the Whig interpretation of English history, and entailed a revision of the traditional relations between ''literary history'' and ''general history''. Combining close textual analysis with wide-ranging intellectual history, this volume both revises the standard story of the history of literary criticism and illuminates a central feature of the cultural history of twentieth-century Britain.Trade ReviewThe Nostalgic Imagination takes its place among Stefan Collini's works as an example par excellence of the rigour that, he teaches us, the critic must exert to remain even-handed: which is in itself the highest praise. * Jack Ingram, Times Literary Supplement *The Nostalgic Imagination reveals the surprising ways that even the most seemingly ahistorical works from this age of criticism not only depended upon conceptions of history, but also influentially conveyed those conceptions to a wider public. * Guy Ortolano, New York University, Ceercles *Stefan Collini's The Nostalgic Imagination... is the most dazzling piece of literary criticism I have read in ages an attempt to decode some of the historical assumptions that underlie the way in which early-twentieth-century critics such as Eliot, Leavis and Empson approached their subject, and written with a wit and intelligence that puts most current academic criticism to shame. * D J Taylor, The Tablet *Collini's book is leavened with sly humour … persuasive and relentlessly interesting * Tony Roberts, PNReview *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Whig History and the Mind of England 2: Scrutinizing the Present Phase of Human History 3: Science and Capitalism as Background 4: Rationalism, Christianity, and Ambiguity 5: The History of the Reading Public 6: The Long Industrial Revolution 7: Literary history as cultural history Postscript

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