Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisThis book reads the highly descriptive impressionist writings of Hardy and Conrad together in the light of a shared attention to sight and sound.

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Book SynopsisThrough readings of an array of recent texts literary and popular, fictional and autofictional, realist and experimental this book maps out a contemporary, Western, shame culture.

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Book SynopsisThe most extensive and up-to-date volume of essays on the Gothic mode in twentieth century culture.

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Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between geography and David Foster Wallace's novelsTrade Review"Lucid and stylishly written, The Geographies of David Foster Wallace's Novels paints a rich and compelling picture of the spatial vistas that characterise Wallace's major fiction. Laurie McRae Andrew's study is theoretically rewarding, his readings are fine-grained and brilliant and his archival findings are impressive and full of surprises." -Adam Kelly, University College Dublin

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Book SynopsisFrom nineteenth-century American art and literature to comic books of the twentieth century and afterwards, Chad A. Barbour examines in From Daniel Boone to Captain America the transmission of the ideals and myths of the frontier and playing Indian in American culture. In the nineteenth century, American art and literature developed images of the Indian and the frontiersman that exemplified ideals of heroism, bravery, and manhood, as well as embodying fears of betrayal, loss of civilization, and weakness.In the twentieth century, comic books, among other popular forms of media, would inherit these images. The Western genre of comic books participated fully in the common conventions, replicating and perpetuating the myths and ideals long associated with the frontier in the United States. A fascination with Native Americans also emerged in comic books devoted to depicting the Indian past of the US In such stories, the Indian remains a figure of the past, romanticized as a lost

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Book SynopsisBest known for a trilogy of historical novels set in the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa, Marilynne Robinson is a prolific writer, teacher, and public speaker, who has won the Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama. This collection intervenes in Robinson’s growing critical reputation, pointing to new and exciting links between the author, the historical settings of her novels, and the contemporary themes of her fictional, educational, and theoretical work. Introduced by a critical discussion from Professors Bridget Bennett, Sarah Churchwell, and Richard King, Marilynne Robinson features analysis from a range of international academics, and explores debates in race, gender, environment, critical theory, and more, to suggest new and innovative readings of her work.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Rachel Sykes, Jennifer Daly, and Anna Maguire ElliottRobinson in context: A critical discussion – Sarah Churchwell, Richard H. King, Bridget BennettWriting, form, and style1 ‘It might be better to burn them’: Archive fever and the Gilead novels of Marilynne Robinson – Daniel King2 ‘One day she would tell him what she knew’: Disturbance of the epistemological conventions of the marriage plot in Lila – Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevedo3 Robinson’s triumphs of style – Jack BakerGender and environment4 The female orphan and an ecofeminist ethic-of-care in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Lila – Anna Maguire Elliott5 Souls all unaccompanied: Enacting feminine alterity in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping – Makayla Steiner6 The domestic geographies of grief: Bereavement, time and home spaces in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Home – Lucy ClarkeImagined histories: Race, religion, and rights7 Domesticating political feeling, affect and memory in Marilynne Robinson’s Home – Christopher Lloyd8 ‘Onward Christian liberals’: Marilynne Robinson’s essays and the crisis of mainline Protestantism – Alexander Engebretson9 Presence in absence: The spectre of race in Gilead and Home – Emily Hammerton-BarryRobinson and her contemporaries10 ‘Everything can change’: Civil rights, civil war and radical transformation in Home and Gilead – Tessa Roynon11 ‘A great admirer of American education’: Robinson as professor and defender of ‘America’s best idea’ – Steve Gronert Ellerhoff and Kathryn E. Engebretson12 Acknowledging a numinous ordinary: Marilynne Robinson and Stanley Cavell – Paul JennerEpilogue – ‘A little different every time’: Accumulation and repetition in Jack – Rachel Sykes

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first edited collection to focus on the work of contemporary author Hari Kunzru. It contains major new essays on each of his novels – The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, White Tears and Red Pill – as well as his short fiction and non-fiction writings. The collection situates Kunzru’s work within current debates regarding postmodernism, postcolonialism, and post-postmodernism, and examines how Kunzru’s work is central to major thematic concerns of contemporary writing including whiteness, national identity, Britishness, cosmopolitanism, music, space, memory, art practice, trauma, Brexit, immigration, covid-19, and populist politics. The book engages with current debates regarding the politics of publishing of ethnic writers, examining how Kunzru has managed to shape a career in resistance of narrow labelling where many other writers have struggled to achieve long-term recognition.Table of ContentsIntroduction: ‘Adding Up to an Unknown’: the elusive fictions of Hari Kunzru – Kristian Shaw and Sara Upstone1 ‘Walking into Whiteness’: The Impressionist and the routes of empire – Churnjeet Mahn2 ‘It was the revenge of the uncontrollable world’: Transmission and COVID-19’ – Lucienne Loh3 Turning the tide, or turning around in My Revolutions – Maëlle Jeanniard du Dot4 Subjectivity at its limits: fugitive community in Kunzru’s short stories – Peter Ely5 The fiction of every-era/no-era: Gods Without Men as ‘translit’ – Bran Nicol 6 ‘Eyes, ears, head, memory, heart’: transglossic rhythms in Memory Palace and Twice Upon a Time – Sara Upstone7 ‘The ghost is him’: the echoes of racism, non-being and haunting in White Tears – David Hering8 'Food for the wolves': the rise of the alt-right in Red Pill – Kristian Shaw9 ‘In the wake of all that’: a conversation with Hari Kunzru – Kristian ShawIndex

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Book SynopsisThese highly original essays illuminate Virginia Woolf and a selection of other twentieth-century writers and artists. Based on detailed research and presenting previously unpublished texts, pictures, and photographs, they are notable feats of scholarly detective work. Six of them focus on four pivotal members of the Bloomsbury Group – Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, and Roger Fry. Prominent ingredients of their story include art, writing, friendship, love, sex, mental illness, and Greek travel. The five ‘out of Bloomsbury’ essays are about the ‘new’ letters from the novelist Rose Macaulay to the Irish poet Katharine Tynan; the prodigious teenage talents of Dorothy L. Sayers; the remarkable story of Tolkien’s schoolmaster R. W. Reynolds; and the artist Tristram Hillier in Portugal. The collection creates a richly varied and entertaining picture of British culture in the first half of the twentieth century.Longlisted for the William M.B. Berger Prize for British Art History 2022Trade Review'Delightfully written essays packed with revelations.'Robin Simon, editor of The British Art Journal'A wealth of colourful new material.'Odin Dekkers, former editor of English Studies'Fascinating essays.'Mark Hussey, distinguished Bloomsbury scholar'Masterful.'The Times Literary Supplement'A delight from beginning to end.'English Studies'Both instructs and inspires.'Literature Cambridge -- .Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction 1 'New' Portraits by Roger Fry of Helen Fry and Vanessa Bell 2 A Complete Strip-off: A Bloomsbury Threesome in the Nude at Studland 3 Clive Bell’s Memoir of Annie Raven-Hill (co-written with Helen Walasek) 4 'Far the Best Holiday for Years': Virginia Woolf’s Second Visit to Greece 5 'Suicidal Mania' and Flawed Psychobiography: Two Discussions of Virginia Woolf 6 Virginia Woolf and 'the Hermaphrodite': A Feminist Fan of Orlando and Critic of Roger Fry 7 'I Am Afraid I Am not Irish': Letters from Rose Macaulay to Katharine Tynan 8 A Teenage Star: The Forgotten Contribution of Dorothy L. Sayers to a Pageant 9 'She Had Quite Unusual Gifts': Dorothy L. Sayers at School10 The Secret Love-Child of an American Civil War Commander: The Strange Story of Tolkien’s Schoolteacher11 'A land pre-eminently to inspire a painter': Tristram Hillier’s first visit to PortugalDetails of original publicationsIndex

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Book SynopsisCharles Dickens called his sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth his ‘best and truest friend’. Georgina saw Dickens as much more than a friend. They lived together for twenty-eight years, during which time their relationship constantly changed. The sister of his wife Catherine, the sharp and witty Georgina moved into the Dickens home aged fifteen. What began as a father–daughter relationship blossomed into a genuine rapport, but their easy relations were fractured when Dickens had a mid-life crisis and determined to rid himself of Catherine. Georgina’s refusal to leave Dickens and his desire for her to remain in his household led to rumours of an affair and even illegitimate children. He left her the equivalent of almost £1 million and all his personal papers in his will. Georgina’s commitment to Dickens was unwavering but it is far from clear what he did to deserve such loyalty. There were several occasions when he misused her in order to protect his public reputation.Why did Georgina betray her once much-loved sister? Why did she fall out with her family and risk her reputation in order to stay with Dickens? And why did the Dickenses’ daughter Katey say it was ‘the greatest mistake ever’ to invite a sister-in-law to live with a family?Trade Review'Essential for anyone interested in Charles Dickens’s personal life. Christine Skelton’s thoroughly researched and brilliantly written book fills in a missing piece of the jigsaw. It makes for enthralling reading.' Jenny Hartley, author of Charles Dickens and the house of fallen women and Charles Dickens: A very short introduction'Georgina Hogarth has been given a voice at last! Christine Skelton has done an admirable job of bringing ‘aunty Georgy” out of the shadow of her celebrity brother-in-law. This is an engaging biography that takes the reader into the heart of one of Victorian Britain’s most famous homes.' Lucinda Hawksley, author, biographer, and great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens'A major, and much-needed, contribution to our knowledge and understanding of both the private and the professional life of our greatest novelist.' Professor Michael Slater, author of The Great Charles Dickens Scandal and Dickens and Women -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 The Hogarths and Dickens become in-laws 2 Friends and flirting (1836–42)3 Dickens and his ‘little Pet’ (1842–7)4 A ‘lively young damsel’ (1848–51)5 Dickens’s mid-life crisis (1852–7) 6 Loyalty and disloyalty (1857–8)7 ‘Poor Miss Hogarth’ (1858–63)8 ‘His own decision will be the best’ (1864–70)9 ‘A hard, hard trial’ (1870–1917) 10 AftermathIndex

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Book SynopsisLuminous presence: Derek Jarman's life-writing is the first book to analyse the prolific writing of queer icon Derek Jarman. Although he is well known for his avant-garde filmmaking, his garden, and his AIDS activism, he is also the author of over a dozen books, many of which are autobiographical. Much of Jarman's exploration of post-war queer identity and imaginative response to HIV/AIDS can be found in his books, such as the lyrical AIDS diaries Modern Nature and Smiling in Slow Motion. This book fully explores, for the first time, the remarkable range and depth of Jarman’s writing. Spanning his career, Alexandra Parsons argues that Jarman’s self-reflexive response to the HIV/AIDS crisis was critical in changing the cultural terms of queer representation from the 1980s onwards. Luminous presence is of great interest to students, scholars and readers of queer histories in literature, art and film.Trade Review'In this engrossing collection of essays, Parsons captures well Jarman’s frenetically creative impulses...'Choice(Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association) -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 'The porter into forgotten landscapes': A finger in the fishes mouth2 Dancing Ledge: 'An autobiography at forty'3 Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio: 'Reading between the lines of history'4 Becoming Pasolini: Derek Jarman in Ostia5 Kicking the Pricks: 'Forward into an uncertain future...'6 Self-Projection in film: The Last of England and The Garden7 Modern Nature: Haunting, flowers and personal mythologies8 Queer Edward II: 'Are you a closet bigot?'9 At Your Own Risk: A Saint's Testament10 Smiling in Slow Motion: Testimony and elegy11 'A kind of bliss': Blue and Chroma12 Derek Jarman’s Garden: A therapy and a pharmacopoeiaConclusion: 'The past is the mirror'BibliographyFilmographyIndex

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Book SynopsisDrawing on the recent ontological turn in critical theory, Spectral Dickens explores an aspect of literary character that is neither real nor fictional, but spectral. This work thus provides an in-depth study of the inimitable characters populating Dickens’ illustrated novels using three hauntological concepts: the Freudian uncanny, Derridean spectrality, and the Lacanian real. Thus, while the current discourse on character studies, which revolves around values like realism, depth, and lifelikeness, tends to see characters as mimetic of persons, this book invents new critical concepts to account for non-mimetic forms of characterization. These spectral forms bring to light the important influence of developments in nineteenth-century visual culture, such as the lithography and caricature of Daumier and J.J. Grandville. The spectrality of novelistic characters developed here paves the way for a new understanding of fictional characters in general.Trade Review'Drawing on graphic traditions of the era, the author describes how Dickens developed objects like dolls and effigies to reinforce meanings beyond the literal. Bove is interested in visual and narrative techniques that move beyond the limits of mimesis.'CHOICE(Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association.)Spectral Dickens will be of immense interest to those seeking to understand Dickens's enduring appeal for readers and critics alike, especially those with an interest in psychoanalysis and the literary critical paradigms it can enable.' The Dickensian'Bove has produced both a work that expands the ways we think about character, and a sustained demonstration of the continuing value of Lacanian thought for literary analysis.'BAVS newsletterThis is an exciting read for those of us long troubled by the old adage that Dickens is a “failed realist” who does not create convincing characters... a creative and original set of readings of how Dickens’s charactersare so powerful.'Dickens Quarterly -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: An uncanny ontology of characterisationPart I Spectral mimesis: portraits, caricature, and character1 Mimesis’s ghosts: caricature and anamorphosis2 Spectral character: dreams, distortion, and the (cut of the) realPart II “Moor eeffocish things”: effigy and the bourgeoisie3 Where “the specular becomes the spectral” in The Old Curiosity Shop and Dombey and Son4 Imagos, dolls, and other gazing effigies in Bleak HousePart III Beyond the realism principle: spectral materiality5 Dream as spectral form in Bleak House and the comic surplus of Micawber in David Copperfield6 The “As if” hauntology of Little Dorrit and the uncanny dream of the three fathersBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisVERY few authors can ever dream of coming close to the legacy left by AA Milne. He remains a household name in almost every corner of the globe thanks to a phenomenally popular collection of whimsical children s stories about a boy named Christopher Robin and his beloved teddy bear. Generations of children have grown up loving the tales of Winnie The Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, which are still among the most popular and profitable - fictional characters in the world. But while the adorable poems and stories have brought unparalleled joy to millions, Alan Alexander Milne, himself was never able to enjoy the fame and fortune they brought him. He died deeply resenting Pooh s success, as far as he was concerned those stories were just such a tiny fraction of his literary work, but nothing else he produced came close in terms of public appreciation. Milne died still unable to reconcile the fact that no matter what else he wrote, regardless of all the plays and stories for adults he had published, he would always be remembered as a children s storyteller. And his son, widely hailed as the inspiration for the adorable character of Christopher Robin, could never accept his unique place in literary history either. He had barely reached his teens before he grew to loathe his famous father, who he bitterly accused of exploiting his early years. _The Extraordinary Life of AA Milne_ delves deep into the life of Milne and sheds light on new places, and tells stories untold.

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Book SynopsisEliza de Feuillide seemed fascinating and outlandish to her cousins in rural eighteen century England. When she visited their village, her appearance was electrifying. She was an attractive, accomplished French countess with a vivacious personality who inspired their imaginations and regaled them with stories of life in London and Paris where she hobnobbed with French nobility and wore the latest fashions. One of these impressionable younger cousins would find Eliza's stories so fascinating that she would incorporate elements of Eliza's life into some of the most famous novels in English literature. This cousin was Jane Austen. Yet Eliza's life was not as glamorous as Jane or her Austen cousins might have thought. She faced many tragedies in her life that wealth and social class could not protect her against. She was also forced to adapt and re-examine her priorities in a way that would dramatically change her life choices and result in a more sedate lifestyle. Read about the perseverance and courage of the real person behind several fictional characters in Jane Austen's writings and novels and the deeper connection Eliza had to the Austen family.

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Book SynopsisThe selected essays of James Wood - our greatest living literary critic and author of How Fiction Works'James Wood is a close reader of genius... By turns luscious and muscular, committed and disdaining, passionate and minutely considered' John BanvilleJames Wood is one of the leading critics of the age, and here, for the first time, are his selected essays. From the career-defining 'Hysterical Realism' to his more personal reflections on family, religion and sensibility, Serious Noticing offers a comprehensive overview of his writing over the last twenty years. These essays offer more than a viewpoint - they show how to bring the eye of critical reading to life as a whole.'James Wood is one of literature’s true lovers, and his deeply felt, contentious essays are thrilling in their reach and moral seriousness' Susan SontagTrade ReviewIn the unspooling sentences and paragraphs of the many fine and often seriously dandy essays that follow in this collection . . . Wood shows himself a maestro of tone and inflection. His sustained close attention as he interrogates the writers he loves is genuinely something to behold -- Tim Adams * Observer *The two voices mingling in this collection give a beautiful, moving sense of the stakes of criticism as Wood has practiced it, vigorously, without interruption for 30 years... No modern critic has exerted comparable influence in how we read . . . Wood writes as if enmeshed in the text itself; registering shifts in point of view and perspective with seismographic precision -- Parul Sehgal * The New York Times Book Review *James Wood is one of literature’s true lovers, and his deeply felt, contentious essays are thrilling in their reach and moral seriousness -- Susan SontagLike all good critics, James Wood is a story-teller of the art of reading, recreating the experience on the page for us’ -- Francis SpuffordCritics like James Wood not only help readers to read but especially, perhaps, help the author as well -- Elena FerranteJames Wood is a close reader of genius... By turns luscious and muscular, committed and disdaining, passionate and minutely considered -- John BanvilleThe most urgent and morally demanding critic around -- GuardianAn authentic literary critic, very rare in this bad time… Wood is always urgent, lucid, and interesting -- Harold BloomWood writes more incisively than almost anyone producing criticism today. His ability to transform complex, anxious thought into lucid, exciting prose is everywhere present -- Janet MalcolmJames Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity… To enter Wood’s mind is to cross a threshold: from the reviewer commonplaces that pass for essay-writing into the intellectual daring that portends literary permanence -- Cynthia Ozick

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Book SynopsisIn a career spanning six decades, David Lodge has been one of Britain's best-loved and most versatile writers. With Varying Degrees of Success he completes a trilogy of memoirs which describe his life from birth in 1935 to the present day, and together form a remarkable autobiography. He describes the highs and lows of being a professional creative writer in several different genres, his extensive travels around the world, and the hope and desire of writers to make a significant and positive impression on their readers and audiences. Varying Degrees of Success provides the reader with a privileged insight into the working practices and the creative life of a major British novelist.'Continuously engaging... Glimpses of the ambition and energy required to fuel the final stretch of his near 60-year career as the most dependable of novelist-critics' New Statesman'Lodge is the best British novelist never to have won the Man Booker prize' The TimesTrade ReviewLodge is the best British novelist never to have won the Man Booker prize * The Times *One of the leading writers of his generation * Guardian *As an account of the period, Varying Degrees of Success is continuously engaging... glimpses of the ambition and energy required to fuel the final stretch of his near 60-year career as the most dependable of novelist-critics. * New Statesman *

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Book Synopsis'Making Darkness Light is an illumination' Adam Phillips'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' SpectatorFor most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being.Revolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more.Making Darkness Light shows how these complexities and contradictions played out in Milton's fascination with oppositions - Heaven and Hell, light and dark, self and other - most famously in his epic poem Paradise Lost. It explores the way such brutal contrasts define us and obscure who we really are, as the author grapples with his own sense of identity and complex relationship with Milton. Retracing Milton's footsteps through seventeenth century London, Tuscany and the Marches, he vividly brings Milton's world to life and takes a fresh look at his key works and ideas around the nature of creativity, time and freedom of expression. He also illustrates the profound influence of Milton's work on writers from William Blake to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges.This is a book about Milton, that also speaks to why we read and what happens when we choose over time to let another's life and words enter our own. It will change the way you think about Milton forever.Trade ReviewMaking Darkness Light is elegant, nuanced, and comprehensive. Moshenska gives us a fresh and vivid account of Milton as an individual and a poet while pushing beyond the boundaries of conventional biography. Blending the personal with the historical and the literary, the results are compelling' -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out GirlJoe Moshenska's superb new biography of Milton is, like the poetry of his subject, a miracle of form, moving from moments of arresting detail to vast contemplations of time, history, and art, all set within an intimate narrative that is at once deeply embedded in its historical moment and aware of how that history connects through other moments to the present. The result is a stirring and compelling account of how great poetry gets written and gets read -- Edward Wilson-Lee, author of The Catalogue of Shipwrecked BooksMoshenska has written a new kind of literary biography. At once glancingly a memoir, a rivetingly informative biography, and a fascinating reading of Milton as poet, scholar and ordinary man in his everyday life, Making Darkness Light is an illumination. Milton and everything and everybody around him are seen in a quite different, intriguing light. -- Adam Phillips, author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored and Becoming FreudJoe Moshenska is professionally committed to creating a readership for Milton among those for whom Genesis, Virgil, Homer and Tasso are closed books . . . A great imaginative exercise . . . His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs -- A.N. Wilson, SpectatorStrikingly original . . . a poetic tour of 17th-century England . . . Literature lovers of all sorts will find something to savor here -- Publishers WeeklyOxford literature professor Moshenska takes a fresh perspective on John Milton (1608-1674), the art of biography, and the experience of reading . . . An inspired biographical and autobiographical journey -- KirkusMaking Darkness Light is unlike any book on Milton I have ever read. It is often densely erudite, but also richly inventive . . . [its] avoidance of easy certainties is typical of this subtle, challenging book -- John Carey, The Sunday TimesJoe Moshenska . . . is astute in placing music, especially rhythm (a word neither Milton nor Shakespeare used) and its visceral relationship to the body, at the root of this original, penetrating, cleverly constructed and occasionally frustrating biography -- Paul Lay, The TimesTantalisingly different and new...an extraordinary, seductive work of intellectual imagination -- Financial TimesMoshenska . . . brings his own experiences into this searching creative portrait of the visionary English poet. The book . . . comes alive in its alert close readings -- New York TimesMaking Darkness Light is not a conventional biography . . . despite the ambitious and demanding nature of his project, Moshenska writes with humility and agility -- Literary ReviewOf course, anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the facts of Milton's life and the context for his poetry will certainly find what they're looking for here. Making Darkness Light includes not only moments in Milton's life and the landscape of 17th century England as well as close readings of his work. But it's the exploration of what the author describes as one of Milton's deepest occupations, "the place of literature in a life," that sets the book apart. Moshenska has no aspirations to separate the biographer from the biography, and Making Darkness Light is richer for his presence throughout the book -- Jessie Gaynor, Lit Hub Senior EditorMoshenska knows his way around Milton's world... Making Darkness Light privileges us with a peek inside its author's mind in contemplation of such a life and makes a compelling case that it could be told in no other way -- Boston Globe

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE QWF MAVIS GALLANT PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONTHE GLOBE 100: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022From LAMBDA Literary Award winner Sina Queyras, Rooms offers a peek into the defining spaces a young queer writer moved through as they found their way from a life of chaos to a life of the mind Thirty years ago, a professor threw a chair at Sina Queyras after they’d turned in an essay on Virginia Woolf. Queyras returns to that contentious first encounter with Virginia Woolf to recover the body and thinking of that time. Using Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own as a touchstone, this book is both an homage to and provocation of the idea of a room of one’s own at the centre of our idea of a literary life. How central is the room? And what happens once we get one? Do we inhabit our rooms? Or do the rooms contain us? Blending memoir, prose, tweets, poetry, and criticism, Rooms offers a peek into the defining spaces a young queer writer moved through as they found their way from a life of chaos to a life of the mind, and from a very private life of the mind to a public life of the page, and from a life of the page into a life in the Academy, the Internet, and on social media."With Virginia Woolf alongside them, Queyras journeys through rooms literal and figurative, complicating and deepening our understanding of what it means to create space for oneself as a writer. Their hard-won language challenges us to resist any glib associations of Woolf’s famous ‘room’ with an easy freedom. Inspiring and moving, Queyras’s memoir testifies to Woolf’s continuing generative power."—Mark Hussey, editor of Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts (2011) and author of Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism (2021)"In this beautiful, perceptive book, Sina Queyras moves deftly between the words and wake of Virginia Woolf and their own formation as writer, lover, teacher, friend, and person. Rooms is expert in its depiction of personal and literary histories, and firmly aware of its moment of composition. Reading these pages, I was enticed by Queyras’s curiosity and openness, thrilled by the sharp edges of their anger. Tight prose, electric thinking, self-discovery – it’s all here, all abuzz. Rooms is alive." – Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book"It is impossible not to question the world as we thought we knew it by the end of this book. Sina Queyras painstakingly aims their extraordinary nerve and talent at Virginia Woolf’s idea of a room of one’s own: 'It’s a mistake to consider the room without all of its entanglements.' Taking Woolf’s cue, Queyras explores writing that is not world-building but something far more generous and transformative; as Woolf wrote, 'Literature is open to everybody.'" – CAConrad, author of AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration Trade Review"Using Virginia Woolf’s 'A Room of One’s Own' as a touchstone text, this book blends memoir, poetry and criticism to offer a glimpse into the formative spaces that Queyras navigated on the way to life as a queer writer in the public eye." – The New York Times"Queyras’ Rooms suggests that, in a world where creative expression is mediated by material constraints, what many writers are actually after is the right amount of noise and silence, care without confinement: “somewhere between retreat and community, there is space.”' – Aishwarya Singh, Montreal Review of Books

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Book SynopsisJ.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy is not only a seemingly inexhaustible source of wonder and excitement, it is also a profound tale, relevant to our times and to the vital question: what is it to be a human being? Why have these books proved so captivating since their publication, discovered anew by each generation? Is there a deeper aspect to the stories that speaks directly to something within us?Many scholars and commentators have asked these or similar questions, delving into his unique use of language, his deep knowledge of the aesthetics of story within the heritage of mythic storytelling, and his ability to weave together myriad themes. However, few if any have approached the deeper aspects of Tolkien's work with the spiritual esoteric insights of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy as their basis. Mark McGivern adopts this approach while also building upon the work of Tolkien scholars such as Verlyn Flieger.This is an illuminating guidebook to the forms and depths of Tolkien's master work.

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Book SynopsisJack Kerouac was one of America's great writers of the latter half of the 20th century, yet he endured a life characterized by persistent hardship and disillusion. Leading Kerouac scholar Paul Maher Jr. targets the writer's embattled insight of self as central to his life and work. He reveals how Kerouac's troubled interactions with alcohol, drugs, and spirituality stamped its importance on his autobiographical prose and poetry and created a singular language that united thoughts on the human condition and spiritual liberation. Becoming Kerouac: A Writer In His Time affixes Kerouac's life and art in a fresh way, giving readers a rich perspective from which to understand this 20th-century literary genius.Using unpublished archival material, Becoming Kerouac focuses on the writer's critical formative years ––1940 to 1957–– to demonstrate his growth as a novelist and poet. Maher contends that Kerouac developed his singular language to capture human consciousness as it never had before. His futilities catapulted American literature to reflect its restless post-World War II anxieties. Narrating the events that comprised Kerouac's life, biographers have long struggled to illustrate his complexness and the contradictions that shaped his determinations and dogged his relationships. But without consideration of the writing, the troubles in life fail to reveal their deeper resonances by skillfully analyzing the work while tracing the events. Maher achieves a full portrait, revealing struggles that problematize his work. Becoming Kerouac fuses Kerouac's life and art to comprehend this misunderstood literary genius.

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Book SynopsisThe amount of fan-generated content about Jane Austen and her novels has long surpassed the author's original canon. Adaptations like Clueless, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen's Fight Club, and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries have given Austen fans priceless opportunities to enjoy the classic texts anew, and continue to bring new and younger fans into the fold. Now, through online culture, the amount and type of fan-created works has exponentially multiplied in recent years. Fans write stories, create art, make videos, and craft memes, all in homage to one of the most celebrated authors of all time.This book explores online fan spaces in search of “Janeites” all over the world to discover what fans are making, how fans are sharing their work, and why it matters that so many women and nonbinary individuals find a haven not only in Jane Austen, but also in Jane Austen fandom. In relatable chapters based on firsthand experience, the authors explore how Austen fandom has and continues to build communities around women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. Whether Janeites are shrewdly picking up on the latent sexual tension between women in Emma or casting people of color in leading roles, Luetkenhaus and Weinstein argue that Austen fans are particularly adept at marrying fantasy and feminism.

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Book SynopsisAn illuminating study of an award-winning writer who captured the complex challenges twentieth-century women faced in their struggle for independence.In Understanding Alice Adams, Bryant Mangum examines the thematic intricacies and astute social commentary of Adams’s eleven novels and five short story collections. Throughout her career Adams was known for creating and re-creating the “Alice Adams woman,” who is bright, honest, attractive, thoughtful—and sometimes a bit offbeat. As Mangum notes, Adams’s central characters—her heroes—are most often women struggling toward self-sufficiency and independence as they strive to fulfill their responsibilities, including child rearing and other societal commitments.After an overview of Adams’s life (1926– 1999), Mangum groups the novels and stories by the decades in which they were published, since shifts in the thematic arc of Adams’s fiction break conveniently along those lines. He explains how Adams used the novel as an extended workshop for her short fiction. Her novels cover wide swaths of the American experience, and from these sweeping narratives she distilled her sharp, lyrical, vibrant short stories, which earned her 23 O. Henry Awards—including six first-place recognitions and a lifetime achievement award—an honor shared with only Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, and Alice Munro.In this study Mangum explores how Adams treats love, family, work, friendship, and nostalgia. He identifies hope as a thread that links all her main characters, despite how accurately she had anticipated the complexities and challenges that accompanied increased freedom for women in the later twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisThe ugly side of superheroesWhat if you suddenly had superpowers? What would you do? How would your friends and family react? What would your obligations to society be?The superheroes’ first missions— combating terrorists or rescuing disaster victims— are a boon to France. Yet while these actions bring the country pride, unity quickly starts to unravel. These superheroes, ultimately, are human. Paparazzi are everywhere. One has an affair with another’s wife. Another questions following the government’s imperialist agenda. Meanwhile the public carps on social media. Molia takes our fascination with superheroes and adds a cutting portrayal of contemporary social mores to create an entertaining and disturbing work with deep dystopian underpinnings.

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Book SynopsisFirst English translations of two early feminist short-story collections, shedding light on the "woman question" at the turn of the 20th century and relating to today's #MeToo movement. This edition provides the first English translations of two short-story collections - Is That Love? (1896) and Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls (1901) - by the Austrian writer Elsa Asenijeff (1867-1941). Primarily remembered as the lover and muse of sculptor and painter Max Klinger, in her time Asenijeff was a widely read author. Both books engage with "the woman question" at the turn of the twentieth century: Asenijeff thematizes the lack of education and professional opportunities for women and girls, critiques the bourgeois family as a site of patriarchal power, and sheds light on systemic sexual violence. Is That Love?, in particular, dismantles dominant narratives of romantic love and marriage. Written while Asenijeff was living in Bulgaria, and set there, the text also engages with that country's political turmoil. In Innocence, Asenijeff relies on some of the traditional characteristics of Mädchenliteratur, educational literature for girls, but also subverts its conventions. In their introduction, the translators explicate the sociohistorical background of both texts, arguing for Asenijeff's importance in the history of women's writing in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German-speaking world and placing her within the larger context of the contemporary global #MeToo movement.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Is that Love? Short Psychological Tales and Observations Love: A Story from Bulgaria She The Governess: Story from Bulgaria Misery: Episodes from Women's Lives I II III IV The Riddle The Fly Raïna Karadjova The Vow Two Moderners What? Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls Introduction Secrets Darkness of the Metropolis Girls' Gossip Marriage At the Folksingers' Alone The Three Sisters Tatjana Lora's Housekeeping Week Mother's Telling a Story! (Two Fairy Tales) Aunt Jola On the Forest Path What Girls Are Not Supposed to Know Girl and Woman (A Chat) Small Child A Fairy Tale School Friends And So Shall We Be Sanctified

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Book SynopsisBreaking Free from Death examines how Russian writers respond to the burden of living with anxieties about their creative outputs, and, ultimately, about their own inevitable finitude. What contributes to creative death are not just crippling diseases that make man defenseless in the face of death, and not just the arguably universal fear of death but, equally important, the innumerable impositions on the part of various outsiders. Many conflicts in the lives of Rylkova's subjects arose not from their opposition to the existing political regimes but from their interactions with like-minded and supporting intellectuals, friends, and relatives. The book describes the lives and choices that concrete individuals and—by extrapolation—their literary characters must face in order to preserve their singularity and integrity while attempting to achieve fame, greatness, and success.Trade Review"Rylkova’s meticulous study is full of original insights and new interpretations of famous literary works, delivered in a lucid and accessible writing style, with numerous references to primary sources; it is a joy to read. Furthermore, she supplies her readers with a clear road map throughout the book, explaining her next steps and intentions at every turn." - Russian ReviewTable of Contents Acknowledgements Prologue: Breaking Free from Death Part One: Beginnings and Endings 1. Leo Tolstoy and the Privilege of Formidable Hypochondria 2. In Chertkov's Grip 3. Uncle Vanya: The Drama of Sustainability 4. "Homo Sachaliensis": Chekhov's "Character" as a Strategy 5. The Steppe as a Story of Humble and Spectacular Beginnings Part Two: Transcending Death 6. Reading Chekhov through Meyerhold's Eyes 7. Living with Tolstoy and Dying with Chekhov: Ivan Bunin's Liberation of Tolstoy (1937) and About Chekhov (1953) as Two Modes of Auto/Biographical Writing 8. "There is a way out": The Cherry Orchard in the Twenty-First Century 9. A Boring Story: Chekhov's Trip to Germany in 1904 Epilogue: Oyster Fever: Chekhov and Turgenev Index

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Book SynopsisCompanion to Victor Pelevin, a collaborative undertaking by a group of emerging Russianist scholars, focuses on the work of one of the most important and hotly debated post-Soviet writers. It provides a valuable resource to scholars, teachers, and students, including how best to teach Pelevin to university-level students, and which critical debates invite further investigation. The contributors offer new readings of Pelevin texts that cover a broad time span and pay due attention to the philosophical and aesthetic complexities of Pelevin’s oeuvre in its development from the early post-Soviet years to the second decade of the present millennium. Examining all of Pelevin’s major works and all Peleviniana currently available in English, the Companion aims to prompt further inquiry into this author’s intellectually stimulating and socially prescient work.Trade Review“Khagi’s project is intertextual, elucidating both Pelevin’s highly self-referential writing and its relation to Russian literature as a whole. Her holistic approach to Pelevin’s fiction is demonstrated by the extensive footnotes outlining literary theories and politics, and linking to multiple Russian authors, elevating the Companion from a sourcebook on ‘Peleviniana’ to a masterclass in post-Soviet literature. … This concern with intertextuality is embedded within each of the eight essays here, allowing Khagi’s Companion to offer Anglophone readers an invaluable map of the contemporary literary world that Pelevin both creates and critiques.”— Sarah Gear, University of Exeter, Modern Language Review (April 2023: Vol. 118, No. 2)“This companion to Pelevin’s work has two major benefits. It offers some usefully workmanlike analyses of his early texts, with handy plot synopses, some general contextualization and thematically engaging discussions. The Companion also offers some introduction to common critical approaches to the writer. The writing is accessible and succinct (if often rather descriptive), and the illustrations a pleasant touch. … [O]verall this is an excellent, balanced and carefully neutral… study that collects everything the Pelevin initiate needs to begin appreciating his work.”— Sally Dalton-Brown, University of Melbourne, Slavonic and East European Review 100, no. 3 (July 2022)“The new collection is thoughtfully crafted for a specific audience, namely US and European nonspecialists looking to teach Pelevin at the university level. The chapters… treat all the author’s major works, particularly those translated into English, but they also draw in less-known compositions and avoid going into the weeds on topics more relevant to Russianists. … In sum, the Companion’s scope is simultaneously expansive and tightly focused, and it models effective ways to approach Pelevin in the classroom. … Highly recommended.”— B. J, Nieubuurt, University of Michigan, CHOICE (December 2022: Vol. 60, No. 4)“The Companion to Victor Pelevin is a collaborative undertaking by current and recent graduate students from American universities and serves scholarly and pedagogical objectives… Some contributions, like Sofya Khagi’s and Alexander McConell’s, are innovative and explore new avenues in research about Pelevin…”— Clemens Günther, Freie Universität Berlin, Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie 78.2Table of ContentsIntroduction Victor Pelevin: Life, Works, Critical DebatesSofya Khagi, University of MichiganPart One: The Post-Soviet1. The Early Years: Post-Soviet with a Capital “S”Michael Martin, University of MichiganPart Two: Space, Time, History2. Space-Time Poetics in Chapaev and the VoidSofya Khagi, University of Michigan3. Parody of Past and Present in Chapaev and the VoidChristopher Fort, University of Michigan4. Masking the Void, Voiding the Mask: Viktor Pelevin and the Performance of HistoryAlexander McConnell, University of MichiganPart Three: Simulation and Mind Control5. “The Battle for Your Mind”: Transformation of Western Social Theory in Generation ‘П’Dylan Ogden, University of Michigan6. Totalitarian Literature in Generation ‘П’Meghan Vicks, University of Colorado, BoulderPart Four: Metamorphosis and Utopia7. Transformative Reading for Tailless Monkeys: Metamorphoses in The Sacred Book of the WerewolfGrace Mahoney, University of Michigan8. The Mythic and the Utopian: Visions of the Future through the Lens of Victor Pelevin’s S.N.U.F.F. and Love for Three ZuckerbrinsTheodore Trotman, University of ChicagoAppendixSelect Publications by Victor Pelevin in Russian and English

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Book SynopsisThe focus of this study in comparative criticism is close analysis of Dostoevsky’s first literary publication—his 1844 translation of the first edition of Balzac’s Eugе́nie Grandet (1834)—and the stylistic choices that he made as a young writer while working on Balzac’s novel. Through the prism of close reading, the author analyzes Dostoevsky’s literary debut in the context of his future mature aesthetic style and poetics. Comparing the original and the translation side by side, this book focuses on the omissions, additions and substitutions that Dostoevsky brought into the text. It demonstrates how young Dostoevsky’s free translation of Eugénie Grandet predicts the creation of his own literary characters, themes, and other aspects of his literary output that are now recognized as Dostoevsky’s signature style. It investigates the changes that Dostoevsky made while working on Balzac’s text and analyzes the complex transplantation of Balzac’s imagery, motifs, and character portraiture from Eugénie Grandet into Dostoevsky’s own writing later on.Trade Review“Titus’s scrupulous examination of Dostoevskii’s ‘free’ translation reveals a pattern of departures from Balzac’s original that allow her to argue that these were intentional choices reflective of the translator’s fledgling poetics. … Titus’s study offers an illuminating account of an important moment in Dostoevskii’s creative career and sheds further light on the larger question of, to quote Priscilla Meyer, ‘how the Russians read the French.’”— Anna Schur, Keene State College, Slavic Review“Julia Titus argues that Dostoevsky’s first published work, his ‘free translation’ of Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet… ought to be considered among his literary texts. Repeatedly straying from Balzac’s original, Dostoevsky offered Russian readers a narrative that contains many of the themes that later became central in his own literary work. Titus selects three topical and engaging examples in the chapters that constitute the body of her book: female characters, the material world, and money. … [T]his accessible book will appeal to students interested in translation studies, in Dostoevsky’s rapport with Balzac, and in the recurrence in Dostoevsky’s oeuvre of the specific themes outlined here. … Her book will lead readers of Dostoevsky to Balzac (not only to Eugénie Grandet, but also to Le Père Goriot and other texts) and back to read Dostoevsky with a new awareness of some of the first choices that he made in articulating his favorite themes.”— Sara Dickinson, Dostoevsky Studies (2022: Vol. 25)“In Dostoevsky as a Translator of Balzac, Julia Titus revisits Dostoevskii’s free translation of Eugénie Grandet from a more positive angle. In Dostoevskii’s rewriting of Balzac’s novel she reads the emergence of the Russian author’s own voice. In the first place, she considers the stylistic decisions Dostoevskii made in the interests of rendering the book accessible to a Russian reading public: substituting Russian equivalents for unfamiliar French objects and terms or simply eliminating such details. In the discrepancies between the French original and the Russian translation – as well as in the similarities – Titus further reads indices of Dostoevskian themes and preoccupations that would reappear in the author’s subsequent novels. … Throughout this short book Titus provides insightful commentaries on Dostoevskii’s translations of and indebtedness to Balzac’s original text.”— Sima Godfrey, University of British Columbia, Canadian Slavonic Papers"A free translation or a complete rewrite? Readers of Dostoevsky’s literary debut – his rendering, in 1844, of the first edition of Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet – have often wondered. As Julia Titus suggests, Dostoevsky may have felt emboldened by a tradition in which Russian versions of European poetry sometimes eclipsed their originals… Titus has serious points to make... Titus’s judgements on why Dostoevsky made various alterations are insightful, if at times overly categorical; the extensive quotations she provides, however, allow the reader to draw their own conclusions… As Titus also reveals, the twenty-two-year-old Dostoevsky made a good fist of some difficult passages, despite a lack of dictionaries and reference works. He coped well with ‘various historical coins, their design elements, and other specifics’, adding affectionate and, as time would prove, entirely characteristic suffixes in order to bring M. Grandet’s sensuous love for lucre alive. Young Dostoevsky considered his translation ‘incomparable’ (bespodobnyi). Strictly speaking, he was right.”— Oliver Ready, The Times Literary Supplement“At last, a comprehensive exploration of Dostoevsky's first published work, a translation of Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, and of its relationship to the Russian author's original writing! Julia Titus's detailed and insightful study makes a compelling argument for translation's constitutive role in the author's creative process and represents an important step toward the full integration of translation into literary studies.”— Brian James Baer, author of Translation and the Making of Russian Literature“It is little known that Dostoevsky began his literary career as a translator. His first published book, a Russian translation of Balzac’s novel Eugénie Grandet, was later superseded by more literal versions. Julia Titus’s meticulous juxtaposition of Balzac’s French original and Dostoevsky’s “free” translation demonstrates how the Russian novelist used strategic deviations from the source text to incorporate Balzac into his own fictional universe. As Titus’s fascinating study shows, Dostoevsky’s appropriations of Balzac’s characters, depictions of the material world, and obsession with the allure of money reverberate through his entire novelistic oeuvre. At the same time, Titus highlights how Dostoevsky distanced himself from Balzac by translating him. This book will be of interest to scholars of Russian and French literature as well as anyone concerned with translation as creative appropriation.”— Adrian Wanner, Liberal Arts Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, The Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Reflections of Eugénie in Dostoevsky’s Female Characters The Material World in Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet and in Dostoevsky’s Texts The Theme of Money in Eugénie Grandet and Dostoevsky’s Texts ConclusionBibliography

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Book SynopsisAfter more than a century of genocides and in the midst of a global pandemic, this book focuses on the critique of biopolitics (the government of life through individuals and the general population) and the counterdevelopment of biopoetics (an aesthetics of life elaborating a self as a practice of freedom) realized in texts by Virginia Woolf, Michel Foucault, and Michael Ondaatje. Their world fiction produces transhistorical, transnational experiences offered to the reader for collective responsibility in these critical times. Their books function as heterotopias: spaces and processes that recall and confront regimes of recognized truths to dismantle fixed identities and actualize possibilities for becoming other. Higgins and Leps define and explore a slant, biopoetic perspective that is feminist, materialist, anti-racist, and anti-war.Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviations List of Figures Introduction: Heterotopic World FictionPart One. Biopolitics: Technologies of the Individual Correlating Knowledge and Power Relations: The Birth of BiopoliticsDiscipline and Punish: Discerning the Dangerous Mrs. Dalloway: A Dangerous DayIn the Skin of a Lion: Dangerous Yearnings Part Two. Biopoetics: Technologies of the Worldly SelfFrom Biopolitics to BiopoeticsConceptsParrhēsia: Dangerous Truth Telling Bios/Logos: Living Truth Askēsis: The Art of Elaborating the Self as a Practice of FreedomExperience-Books: Altering Truths Heterotopic Methods Method 1—Disposing/Transposing the Archive: Criminal Vanishing Acts Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur, et mon frère . . .The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems Flush: A Biography Method 2—Distracting/Transacting Genealogy: Reading for One’s Life Between the ActsThe English PatientThe History of Sexuality, vol. 1Method 3—Dislocating/Transiting Strategics: Reading Biopoetic AssemblagesFoucault 1: The History of Sexuality, vols. 2, 3, 4Foucault 2: Answering Questions Woolf 1: “. . . very little persuaded of the truth of anything”Woolf 2: OrlandoWoolf 3: The WavesOndaatje 1:“[W]e can’t rely on only one voice”Ondaatje 2: WarlightOndaatje 3: Running in the FamilyOndaatje 4: The Cat’s Table Figures Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFollowing My Nose by acclaimed science fiction historian and critic, Alexei Panshin, offers a rich tapestry of literary analysis and personal reflections. Panshin embarks on an intellectual journey, exploring his encounters with the works of seminal science fiction authors. His deep dive into Robert Heinlein''s storytelling reveals a critical understanding of Heinlein''s narrative techniques and thematic concerns, highlighting the complexities and nuances of Heinlein''s works. Panshin''s interactions with Heinlein''s stories are not just as a reader, but as a writer influenced by his style. Panshin also delves into the world of A.E. van Vogt, examining the unique narrative structures and philosophical underpinnings in Vogt''s stories. This analysis extends beyond surface-level plot summaries, offering insights into the creative and speculative aspects of Vogt''s work. Panshin''s critique is both an appreciation and a scholarly examination of Vogt''s contribution to science fiction. The book also covers Panshin''s analysis of Charles Dodgson''s (Lewis Carroll''s) creative process. He explores the imaginative depths of "Alice''s Adventures in Wonderland," shedding light on Dodgson''s innovative use of language and fantasy. Panshin''s exploration is both a tribute to Dodgson''s genius and an academic inquiry into his narrative strategies. In addition to these specific authors, Panshin offers a broader critique of the science fiction genre, its evolution, and its impact on literature and culture. His book serves as a bridge between personal memoir and literary criticism, providing a unique perspective on the power of speculative fiction and its role in shaping our understanding of the world.

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Book SynopsisReinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he had become one of Cuba's most important poets, an outspoken critic of Castro's regime and one of the leading gay voices of the twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment and torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed suicide in 1990, ending a life of constant struggle against repression. In a farewell note, Arenas wrote: Due to my delicate state of health and to the terrible depression that causes me not to be able to continue writing and struggling for the freedom of Cuba, I am ending my life ... I do not want to convey to you a message of defeat, but of continued struggle and hope. Cuba will be free. I already am. (signed) Reinaldo ArenasTrade ReviewOne of the most shattering testimonials ever written on the subject of oppression and defiance -- Mario Vargas LlosaReading Arenas is like witnessing a bare consciousness in the process of assimilating the most universal, but powerful, human experiences and turning them into literature * The New York Times *Any attempt to reckon with Cuba's torturous twentieth century will have to take into account Arenas's monumental work ... an essential human testimony, joyful and enraged, a triumph of conscience -- Garth GreenwellA document of a particular and disturbing honesty by one of the truly great writers to come out of Latin America * Chicago Tribune *One of the most searing satirical writers of the 20th century, a worthy successor to Aristophanes and Swift -- Jaime Manrique * Village Voice *

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Book SynopsisThe autobiography Nancy Mitford intended to write herself

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Book SynopsisA fascinating collection of essays on literary subjects ranging from Daniel Defoe to Samuel Beckett by a Nobel and Booker Prize-winning writerLate Essays gathers together J.M. Coetzee’s literary essays from 2006 to 2017. The subjects covered in this stunning collection range from Daniel Defoe in the early eighteenth century to Coetzee’s contemporary Philip Roth. Coetzee has had a long-standing interest in German literature and here he engages with the work of Goethe, Hölderlin, Kleist and Walser. There are four fascinating essays on fellow Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett and he looks at the work of three Australian writers: Patrick White, Les Murray and Gerald Murnane. There are essays too on Tolstoy’s great novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, on Flaubert’s masterpiece Madame Bovary, and on the Argentine modernist Antonio Di Benedetto.Trade ReviewA writer of JM Coetzee’s stature needs no preamble… This book emerges as an engaging series of master classes in novel writing, from which we might distil a selection of dos and don’ts -- Lauren Elkin * Guardian *J.M. Coetzee's essays are filtered through boundless reserves of knowledge, wisdom and reading...A spare, dry sense of humour...Not a single page goes by in this collection when you don't learn something * Spectator *Coetzee remains a highly original thinker, able to take a much-dissected novel such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and offer an appreciation that stretches the boundaries of the reading experience. The most intriguing essay is one on Philip Roth, a rare occasion where Coetzee tackles one of his contemporaries -- Tobias Grey * Financial Times *His essays are models of clarity, judicious reasoning, and respectful attention… a kind of sage who brings composure to bear on the earthquake zones of mind and heart. He is a master of prose’s lucidities, all the while cognisant of the hidden presence of poetry… Late Essays gives you the feeling that Coetzee has come to look into the eyes of writers, the better to read them with the justice they deserve * The Monthly *His interest is in delving into the writer’s mind, the circumstances surrounding the work and the thinking processes that led to writerly choices in terms of form, style, and themes...Above all, he brings the perspective of one who has much to teach us about slow reading. * Australian Book Review *

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Book SynopsisWilbur Smith has lived an incredible life of adventure, and now he shares the extraordinary true stories that have inspired his fiction. I've been writing novels for over fifty years. I was lucky enough to miss the big wars and not get shot, but lucky enough to grow up among the heroes who had served in them and learn from their example. I have lucked into things continuously. I have done things which have seemed appalling at the time, disastrous even, but out of them has come another story or a deeper knowledge of human character and the ability to express myself better on paper and write books which people enjoy reading.Along the way, I have lived a life that I could never have imagined. I have been privileged to meet people from all corners of the globe, I have been wherever my heart has desired and in the process my books have taken readers to many, many places. I always say I've started wars, I've burned down cities and I've killed hundreds of thousands of people - but only in my imagination!From being attacked by lions to close encounters with deadly reef sharks, from getting lost in the African bush without water to crawling the precarious tunnels of gold mines, from marlin fishing with Lee Marvin to near death from crash-landing a Cessna aeroplane, from brutal school days to redemption through writing and falling in love, Wilbur Smith tells us the intimate stories of his life that have been the raw material for his fiction. Always candid, sometimes hilarious and never less than thrillingly entertaining, On Leopard Rock is testament to a writer whose life is as rich and eventful as his novels are compellingly unputdownable.Trade ReviewThis brutally honest, entertaining and compelling autobiography reflects an extraordinary man and his extraordinary talent * Lancashire Evening Post *If you love the books of Wilbur Smith then I do recommend that you read this exciting adventure story that reads more like one of his novels than a non-fiction account of his life. There are thrills and danger, as well as inspiration for all writers to keep doing what you love, do it well and enjoy life to the full * Smorgasboard blog *A rollicking yarn of slaughtered wildlife, literary superstardom and late-blooming love with his fourth wife, Niso. 'I won't stop writing until I stop breathing,' he promises * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisA Book of the Year in The Times & Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Spectator, Irish Times and TLS. 'Superb' Daily Mail, 'Book of the Week''Brilliant' The Times, 'Book of the Week''[A] vivid, detailed account' Guardian, 'Book of the Week''Hugely enjoyable' Daily Telegraph'Fascinating' SpectatorCharles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians. Slight of build, with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died. Although he specified an unpretentious funeral, it was inevitable that crowds flocked to his open grave in Westminster Abbey. Experiencing the worst and best of life during the Victorian Age, Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world. He was one of them.Filled with twists, pathos and unusual characters, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer's death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, A. N. Wilson seeks to understand Dickens's creative genius and enduring popularity. Following him from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens's fiction drew from his own experiences - a fact he acknowledged. Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity. Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage.Going beyond standard narrative biography, Wilson brilliantly revisits the wellspring of Dickens's vast and wild imagination, revealing why his novels have such instantaneous appeal and why they continue to resonate today. He also uncovers the double standards of both the man and his times.Trade ReviewDelightful, riveting... In this superb book, [Wilson] has succeeded in prising open the layers and revealing the inner child inside Charles Dickens. * Daily Mail, 'Book of the Week' *Fascinating... The greatest compliment one could pay this book is to say that it doesn't only read like something written about Dickens; animated by a restless, rummaging critical intelligence, and a curiosity about many of the things others simply take for granted, at times it reads more like something written by Dickens. * Spectator *This is the stylish and outspoken A N Wilson at his provocative best. * 'Books of the Year', Daily Mail *A brilliant denunciation of the sickness of Victorian England.[Wilson] is especially vivid on the moral horror of a self-confident, capitalist society without a safety net for those at the bottom. * The Times, 'Book of the Week' *Hugely enjoyable... A wonderfully fresh and vivid account, fluently integrating life and work, teasingly constructed without being relentlessly chronological, and personally charged by an impassioned gratitude to Dickens... Wilson's unquenchable gusto, sharp critical intelligence and buoyant prose make compelling reading - a vindication not so much of the mystery of Charles Dickens as the miracle. * Daily Telegraph *Wilson's attempt to pin down the Dickens we don't know is energetic. He leads the reader, like one of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, to visit moments in the writer's life... Compelling * Financial Times *A sprightly retelling of a well-known narrative... vivid, detailed. * Guardian, ‘Book of the Week’ *Enthralling... In each section, themes and ideas spool out with Wilson's characteristic fluency and narrative flair. He both loves and is appalled by Dickens * Literary Review *Utterly satisfying... A marvelous exploration by an author steeped in the craft of his subject's elastic, elusive work. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *Beyond the eye-opening analysis, Wilson also offers a moving personal account of why Dickens has meant so much to him * Booklist (starred review) *Charles Dickens had succeeded in lodging all his phobias and foibles within his characters without leaving many traces of his personal life in Tolstoy-like autobiographical confessions. But A. N. Wilson, who three decades ago wrote one of the best biographies of Tolstoy, shows in The Mystery of Charles Dickens that similar demons haunted the nightmarish duality of Dickens's personality as well. * Zinovy Zinik, 'Books of the Year', TLS *Table of Contents1: The Mystery of fifteen pounds, thirteen shillings and ninepence 2: The Mystery of his childhood 3: The Mystery of the cruel marriage 4: The Mystery of the charity of Charles Dickens 5: The Mystery of the public readings 6: The Mystery of Edwin Drood 7: The Mystery of Charles Dickens

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Book SynopsisSport and Monstrosity in Science Fiction examines fantastic representations of sport in science fiction, both cataloguing this almost entirely unexamined literary tradition and arguing that the reason for its neglect reflects a more widespread social suspicion of the athletic body as monstrous. Combining scholarship of monstrosity with a biopolitically focused philosophy of embodiment, this work plumbs the depths of our abjection of the athletic body and challenges us to reconsider sport as an intersectional space. In this latter endeavour it contradicts the image presented by both the most dystopian films such as Deathrace and Rollerball as well as social criticism of sport that limits its focus to an essentially violent masculinity. The book traces an alternative tradition of sport sf through authors as diverse as Arthur C. Clarke, Steven Barnes, and Joan Slonczewski, exploring the way the intersectional categories of gender, race, and age in these works are negotiated in, for example, a solar wind sailing race or futuristic anti-gravity boxing. These complex athletic bodies display the social mobility that sport allows and challenge us to acknowledge our own monstrously animal bodies and our place in a “cycle of living and dying.”Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Beastmode1 Baseball, Not Biology: Sex and Gender in Sport SF2 Broken Teeth: Race, Bodies, and Sport SF3 Graying the Playing Field: SF Sport and Age4 SF Sport and the Individual Talent5 Sport, Institution, and the Devil6 Beasts in the Stands: Fandom, Sport, and SFConclusion, or How to Stop Looking for SinnersWorks Cited

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Book Synopsis“Holmes could be rude, impatient, abrupt, and his intolerance of fools was legendary. I tried to show all this, all of the man’s incredible brilliance. But there are some cracks in Holmes’s marble, as in an almost-perfect Rodin statue. And I tried to show that, too. It’s difficult for me to say what I may have given to the image of Holmes. Faithful to Conan Doyle’s text, certainly. Also, I’ve tried to bring out the emotion that is there in Holmes. On the surface he seems a cold, sometimes dark, rather off-putting figure. But deeper down, I think, he’s a man of feeling.” JeremyJeremy Brett is still recognised as the most celebrated incarnation of Sherlock Holmes which he presented for ten years. Jeremy delighted viewers with his dashing, arrogant, moody interpretation of the most popular famous detective he brought a brooding intensity to his finest role - one of disturbing power. He is still called the definitive Sherlock Holmes.Covering a forty year period from first leaving Central School of Speech and Drama until his early death at the age of 61, Playing a Part is a full career book of “a very fine actor” who would delight audiences as a sensitive lover or as a haunted murderer. Talented, loved and admired by the theatrical world at the birth of the National Theatre led by Laurence Olivier, Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith. Beginning and ending his career in Manchester he would transfer his talents to the American culture of the 70s as he settled into his new life with his American wife but was enticed back with some of the best classical roles for television and the stage.Jeremy’s own words are used whenever they are available to present his story and his approach to playing the parts. His unfailing enthusiasm for a new project and the degree of commitment comes through.Illustrated with original photographs covering his life and career it is the first detailed record of all his performances on the stage, film or television.

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Book SynopsisPeople often associate fairy tales with Disney films, and with the male authors from whom Disney often drew inspiration - notably Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. In these portrayals the princess is a passive, compliant figure. By contrast, The Lost Princess shows that classic fairy tales such as 'Cinderella', 'Rapunzel' and 'Beauty and the Beast' have a much richer, more complex history than Disney's saccharine depictions. Anne E. Duggan recovers the voices of women writers such as Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, Marie-Jeanne L'Heritier and Charlotte-Rose de La Force, who penned popular tales about ogre-killing, pregnant, cross-dressing, dynamic heroines who saved the day. This new history will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about the lost, plucky heroines of historic fairy tales.Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: A Not-So-Passive Cinderella Chapter 2: Beauties, Beasts and d'Aulnoy's Legacy Chapter 3: The Other Famous Cat Tale Chapter 4: The Lost Amazon Warriors Epilogue References Sources Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisUntil the appearance in 1870 of the Memoir written by her nephew J.E. Austen Leigh, very little was known about Jane Austen beyond what could be deduced from her major novels. This had been the family’s choice. Despite this lack of information Deidre Le Faye records that following the acceptance of Jane’s novel Susan for publication in 1803, “according to family tradition, she had composed the plot of another full-length novel”. This, Two Girls of Eighteen, never previously identified as Jane’s, was published in 1806 but at some point apparently suppressed. Only two copies are known to exist - one in the Deutsch Nationalbibliothek and the one from which the present text has been transcribed, which came from a house that Jane knew and is mentioned by her in A Collection of Letters. Two Girls of Eighteen has a divided structure, involving two sisters, Charlotte and Julia, each of whom is given her own story, the one a Romance partly based on Richardson’s Clarissa, the other a Gothic confection - both set in contemporary England. Jane appears to be testing in this the capabilities of such forms for expressing what she was trying to achieve. Through the character of Charlotte, who is attempting to write a novel, she deliberates at length the sort of thing that she herself might write. Her reflections on such subjects as medicine, law, the rights of women, etc take us below the glossy surface of the major novels and show us the complex web of thought that lies beneath.

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Book SynopsisSleuthing Miss Marple mirrors the structure and playful analytic style of a detective novel. Beginning at the ‘scene of the crime’, this investigation places Agatha Christie and the clue-puzzle in historical context, casting light on the methods, the motives, and, in a sense, the alibis that underpin Christie’s crime fiction. In keeping with the clue-puzzle analytical method devised for this book, each chapter builds towards a conclusion that delivers a surprising intellectual payoff.This enquiry is unapologetically textual in approach. It constructs a rigorous evidence base drawn from the Marple short stories and novels, and presents a useful interpretation of crime fiction scholarship. This provides a foundation for original literary analyses that reveal Christie’s engagements with gender roles and genre rules, and the sleights of hand that they conceal. Christie’s modus operandi is uncovered, as are the narrative strategies and literary devices that she deployed to ambush unwary readers. Crucially, this investigation shows how Christie’s ingenious methods made it possible for an elderly spinster to get away with solving murder. Sleuthing Miss Marple will be invaluable for students and researchers of crime fiction, twentieth-century literature, and creative writing.Trade Review‘With Agatha Christie studies on the rise, it is high time attention turned to Miss Marple. Desirée Prideaux’s fresh look at the archetypal spinster sleuth sheds much-needed light on one of the twentieth century’s most popular and misunderstood fictional characters.’ J.C. Bernthal, author of Queering Agatha Christie‘Desirée Prideaux’s Sleuthing Miss Marple is a phenomenally rich and original addition to Agatha Christie studies… Prideaux breaks new ground and sheds new light on a familiar and much-loved character who, as Prideaux demonstrates, contains depths never before explored to such an extent. The end result is an enlightening and enjoyable lesson in never underestimating a woman—or the writer who created her.’ Rachel Schaffer, Clues‘Showcase[s] some interesting and thought-provoking ideas, which encourage you to return to the original stories for a re-read with a different way of looking at them.’ Kate Jackson, Crossing Examining CrimeTable of ContentsIntroduction1. The Scene of the Crime: Social and Cultural Background, Gender Politics, and Christie in Context 2. Establishing Means: The Clue-Puzzle, Genre ‘Rules’, and Christie’s Modus Operandi 3. Solving The Thirteen Problems: A Fresh Analysis of the Inceptive Miss Marple Mysteries 4. ‘I’ve no doubt I am quite wrong’: Spinsterly Camouflage and Deceptive Reassurance in the Marple Novels 5. Marple and Agency: The Female Detective, the Feminine Heroic, and Appropriating the Gaze 6. Heroic Women: The Ironic Femme Fatale, Comic Vindication of the 'Dotty' Old Lady, and Marple’s Female Assistants 7. Breathless Men: The Comic Male Characters of the Marple Mysteries 8. Christie’s ‘Rational Women’ and Common-Sense Dispersal of the Gothic 9. ‘Breathless Men’: Gothic Limitations on Masculine Agency Dénouement

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Book SynopsisA concise and fascinating biography of one of the world's undisputed literary titans

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Book SynopsisDescribed as the most widely read and influential serious writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains relevant in our own era of contested media. He continues to attract a large readership. This book is about Orwell’s post-war cultural moment c. 1948. Taking his Diaries of the time as inspiration, together with his famous final novel, 1984 (published 1949), and treating them as contiguous texts, Brian May considers the gaps, equivocations, and contradictions in Orwell's message and asks what Orwell would have written next. But 1948 is more than a work of literary criticism: rather, it balances critical discussion with creative intervention, being one-half literary-critical commentary, and one-half fictional departure – a novella titled “From the Archives of Oceania,” which quotes, parodies and pastiches Orwell's Diaries, offering a possible prequel. Together these elements offer a resource for the reader to interrogate anew such difficult issues as Orwell's sexism and anti-Semitism; to explore the tensions between various intertwining strands of thought that cast Orwell as both realist and idealist, Puritan and individualist; and to better understand Orwell's curious affection for the natural world. 1948 will appeal to all readers and critics of Orwell, but also to students of dystopian fiction, "revisionary" fiction and "reception study," which highlights the audience’s contribution to an artwork's meaning.Trade ReviewAt the centre of this dense, extraordinary book lies a powerful novella... As well as mashing together Orwell’s life and fiction, the novella elegantly draws in some distressing contemporary issues. Evocative images of othered people on boats in perilous conditions, and the chilling consequences of leaving antisemitism unchallenged, are haunting... It slowly builds to a believable yet horrifying conclusion which would stand up well in comparison to the iconic end of Nineteen Eighty-Four. -- Nicola Rossi, The Orwell SocietyTable of ContentsAcknowledgement I. Introduction II. Novella: “From the Archives of Oceania” III. Teaching Supplement IV. Critical Supplement: “Orwell Agonistes” Notes Index

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Book SynopsisLewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is a cultural phenomenon. First published in 1865, it has never been out of print and has been translated into 170 languages. But why does it have such enduring and universal appeal for both adults and children? Beginning by plunging the reader into the spectacular new wonderland of acclaimed illustrator Kristjana S. Williams, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser goes on to explore how Lewis Carroll's celebrated Alice books have fuelled creative minds for over 150 Years. This unique publication takes us on a journey whose scope ranges from art, literature, theatre and film through science and technology to fashion and politics, encouraging us to ask whether we should all try to be more like Alice.Trade Review'As Alice herself once said: "what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?" This book provides plenty of the former while encouraging, I'm sure, much of the latter.' -- - - Antonino Tati, Cream Magazine, October 2020 'This playful and visually stunning tome investigates the Alice phenomenon and includes dreamy illustrations and quotes from a host of aficionados...' -- - - Australian Women's Weekly 'a rich accompanying coffee table book' -- - - Tianwei Zhang, WWD, May 19 2021 'full of riches' -- - - Claire Allfree, The Telegraph, 18th May 2021 'deserve[s] to be on anyone's bookshelf'-- - - Michael Glover, The Tablet, 15th September 2021Table of ContentsForeword, Tristram Hunt - Introduction, Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen - Wonderland, Kristjana S. Williams - Creating Alice, Annemarie Bilclough - Performing Alice, Simon Sladen - Reimagining Alice, Kate Bailey - Being Alice, Harriet Reed

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Book SynopsisHidden Heroes is a collection of short stories from the 1980s to present that unveil the lives of ordinary North Koreans. Through themes of identity, community, and power, it reveals a complex society, offering readers a nuanced understanding beyond prevailing stereotypes.

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Book SynopsisNancy Durrell was a woman famous for her silences. Anaïs Nin said 'I think often of Nancy's most eloquent silences, Nancy talking with her fingers, her hair, her cheeks, a wonderful gift. Music again.' As the first wife Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandria Quartet, it is perhaps surprising that she is an unknown entity, a constant presence in the biographies of Durrell and others in the Bloomsbury set, yet always a shadowy figure, beautiful and enigmatic. But who was the woman who was with Durrell during the most important years of his development as a writer? Joanna Hodgkin decides to retrace her mother's fascinating story: the escape from her toxic and mysterious family; the years in bohemian literary London and Paris in the 1930s; marriage to Durrell and their discovery of the 'Eden' of pre-war Corfu and her desperate struggle to survive in Palestine alone with a small child as the British Mandate collapsed. Amateurs in Eden is a fascinating biography of a literary marriage and of an unusual woman struggling to live an independent life.Trade ReviewFrank and captivating . . . rich in charm and pathos . . . Hodgkin has done both Nancy and herself proud with this fresh portrait of a marriage we thought we knew, and of a woman we have never known well enough -- Miranda Seymour * Sunday Times *It's a cracking story, and Hodgkin is a meticulous researcher -- Olivia Laing * Observer *The animating spirit that pulses through this joint biography is to be thoroughly applauded -- D.J Taylor * Literary Review *This is not just a memoir of her mother. This is the history of a literary wife. On both counts, Hodgkin succeeds beautifully . . . Her story is not a footnote; it is absolutely central * Independent *A truly fascinating account of one of those many women, the wives and the girlfriends and the sisters of famous literary men, who have lived a twilight existence in the shadows of the historical canon. A particularly rich and honest account * Scotland on Sunday *An enjoyable, revisionist account of a bohemian marriage -- Blake Morrison * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisHenry Swanzy (1915-2004) has an unrivalled position as the midwife of Caribbean writing in the post 1950s period. As the editor of the BBC Caribbean Voices programme (initiated by Una Marson) between 1946 and 1956, he was there as the careers of George Lamming, Edgar Mittelholzer, Jan Carew, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon and many others took off in London. As a programme aimed in the first place at a Caribbean listenership, Swanzy encouraged writing that was authentic to its Caribbean roots, in language, theme and social concern. As an Irishman, Swanzy retained enough of a post-colonial sensibility to be positively sympathetic to the nationalist thrust of the writing. He was evidently well-respected by the writers to whom he offered both literary and personal support – and not least for his awareness of their pecuniary needs. Once Caribbean Voices was well established, it was left in the hands of Caribbean editors (including Mittelholzer and V.S. Naipaul) and Swanzy himself went off to Ghana in 1956 to encourage and support writers and broadcasting there. Thanks to the generosity of Swanzy’s heirs, his private and often amusingly indiscreet diaries of this period (known as “Ichabod”) have been made available and carefully edited and documented by the team of Niblett, Campbell and Smith. With an introduction that puts Swanzy and these radio programmes in context, this is both an essential, entertaining and highly readable book for anyone even remotely interested in the development of Caribbean writing. Not least of its value is the extensive appendix where Niblett et al. have documented all the writers mentioned in the diary. This, in itself, is a salutary reminder of the wealth of writing talent in both the Caribbean and Ghana that flowered in this period but then, in the absence of other opportunities, in many cases undeservedly disappeared from view.Table of ContentsIntroduction The Diaries Appendix Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisGeorge’s memory is inseparable from Orkney, where he was born the youngest child of a poor family and which he rarely left. His mother was a beautiful woman who spoke only Gaelic and his father was a wit, mimic and singer, who also doubled as postman and tailor. Tuberculosis framed George’s early life and kept him in a kind of limbo. He discovered alcohol which gave him insights into the workings of the mind. While attending the University of Edinburgh he came into contact with Goodsir Smith, MacDiarmid and Norman MacCaig – and Stella Cartwright with whom perhaps all of them were in love. By the time of his death in 1996 he was recognised as one of the great writers of his time and country.

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