Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisThis book is a critical introduction to Finnegans Wake and its genesis. As well as offering a survey of critical, scholarly and theoretical approaches to Joyce''s masterpiece, it analyses in detail the compositional development of certain key passages which describe the artist (Shem) and his project; the river-mother (ALP) and her ''first kiss''; the Oedipal shooting of the universal father (HCE) by the priestly son (Shaun); and the bewitching and curious daughter (Issy). The analyses demonstrate ''genetic'' ways of reading the text which illustrate its immense range and playfulness and how these qualities were generated in composition. As well as opening up the densely detailed textuality of the Wake in all its multiplicity, Fordham argues for a relation between the way the text was formed and key aspects of its thematic content: an uprising of particularity and detail against universality, absolutes and generality. The proliferation of individuated textual details overwhelm any unitaTrade ReviewReview from previous edition Sophisticated, erudite, and elegant... it is clear that we have here one of those landmark works on Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Among its many accomplishments Fordham's book demonstrates to a wide audience the procedure and potential productivity of genetic criticism and shows how this approach both stimulates and authorizes new ways of reading the Wake. The readings themselves are a marvelously layered consideration of words, sentences, and passages that illuminate how meaning becomes enlarged, complicated, shifted by revision. At the same time Fordham tracks a complex and fascinating thesis with theoretical implications. A brilliant job and lots of fun to boot. * Margot Norris, The James Joyce Literary Supplement *Fordham's book is one of the most engaging and original studies of Finnegans Wake to appear in a very long time...Fordham has done Joyce's readers a great service by opening up this Pandora's box of inquiry. * Jed Deppman, Review of English Studies *Fordham provides readings of Joyce's language with an improvisational air that belies the sheer erudition informing his writing. Like the Wake itself, there are flashes of insight and brilliance. * Forum for Modern Language Studies *Wonderful. It does the most difficult thing - it renders the book more interesting without making it (or Joyce) sound too coherent. It has been really illuminating for me, a great pleasure to read. * Adam Phillips, General Editor of the Penguin Freud *Certainly one of the best books on the Wake yet published, Lots of Fun is no heavy-handed guidebook or querimonious, would-be summary, but something far more enjoyable and useful: an attempt to experience the Wake on and with its own terms. * Tim Conley, James Joyce Quarterly *A brilliant study of Joyce's drafting of Finnegans Wake, interesting for its own sake and offering an illuminating approach to reading the text. One of the best books on the Wake to have appeared in the last decade or two, it will appeal to all students of Joyce's work. The introduction will be valuable for those who are new to the Wake, but those who know it well will also find Finn Fordham's able survey extremely useful. * Derek Attridge *excellent introduction...a commendably open and fluid approach...organically amenable to Joyce's own theory and practice of composition...the principles of genetic criticism are ably demonstrated here, and the value of this method is vouchsafed by Fordham's energetic and scholarly analysis...Fordham [proposes] the idea of character function...a subtle and supple approach, which stays faithful to the linguistic ebb and flow of Joyce's tragicomic heteroglossia. Thanks to the sterling work of Finn Fordham...Finnegans Wake is a garden in which a few more of us may play. * Keith Hopper, Notes and Queries, vol.56, no. 2, 303-6. *Finn Fordham has given us an important and major new study of Finnegans Wake, one that investigates the book with unparalleld intensity and in a brilliantly unique way. Among its many other accomplishments, Fordham's work contributes powerfully to the renewed upsurge of interest in what Helen Vendler has called "the art of close reading", offering its reader both a compelling defence of the practice and a brilliant exemplification of its exercise. Finn Fordham is a great and electrifying reader. No one else reads the Wake with quite the same kind of depth or intensity...This is a book that should appeal to and reward both the seasoned reader of the Wake and the novice... Its genetic exegeses are mind-widening and fun... [It] is a powerful and thought-provoking new study, one that will stimulate and reward any interested reader of the book. This is first-rate and important work. * John Bishop, James Joyce Broadsheet *Table of ContentsPART I; PART II; PART III; PART IV

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Book SynopsisDoes empathy felt while reading fiction actually cultivate a sense of connection, leading to altruistic actions on behalf of real others? Empathy and the Novel presents a comprehensive account of the relationships among novel reading, empathy, and altruism. Drawing on psychology, narrative theory, neuroscience, literary history, philosophy, and recent scholarship in discourse processing, Keen brings together resources and challenges for the literary study of empathy and the psychological study of fiction reading. Empathy robustly enters into affective responses to fiction, yet its role in shaping the behavior of emotional readers has been debated for three centuries. Keen surveys these debates and illustrates the techniques that invite empathetic response. She argues that the perception of fictiveness increases the likelihood of readers'' empathy in part by releasing them from the guarded responses necessitated by the demands of real others. Narrative empathy is a strategy and subject Trade ReviewEmpathy and the Novel belongs in the company of Peter Brooks' Reading for the Plot as an exciting and lucid reflection on empathy in the novel and on the empathetic effects of narrative on readers. Working at the cross-section of literature, neuroscience, and psychology, the book is a stunningly original, broad-ranging contribution to narrative ethics and to the meanings of emotion in literature, life, and human society. * Susan Stanford Friedman, Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison *Table of ContentsCONTENTS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; PREFACE; APPENDIX: A COLLECTION OF HYPOTHESES ABOUT NARRATIVE EMPATHY; WORK CITED; INDEX

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction attempts to descry the historical and cultural contours of SF in the wake of technoculture studies. Rather than treating the genre as an isolated aesthetic formation, it examines SF''s many lines of cross-pollination with technocultural realities since its inception in the nineteenth century, showing how SF''s unique history and subcultural identity has been constructed in ongoing dialogue with popular discourses of science and technology. The volume consists of four broadly themed sections, each divided into eleven chapters. Section I, Science Fiction as Genre, considers the internal history of SF literature, examining its characteristic aesthetic and ideological modalities, its animating social and commercial institutions, and its relationship to other fantastic genres. Section II, Science Fiction as Medium, presents a more diverse and ramified understanding of what constitutes the field as a mode of artistic and pop-cultural expression, canvassTable of ContentsContributors ; Introduction ; Part I. Science Fiction as Genre ; 1. "Extrapolation and Speculation" ; Brooks Landon ; 2. "Aesthetics" ; Peter Stockwell ; 3. "Histories" ; Arthur B. Evans ; 4. "Literary Movements" ; Gary K. Wolfe ; 5. "Fandom" ; Farah Mendlesohn ; 6. "The Marketplace" ; Gary Westfahl ; 7. "Pulp Science Fiction" ; Jess Nevins ; 8. "Literary Science Fiction" ; Joan Gordon ; 9. "Slipstream" ; Victoria de Zwaan ; 10. "The Fantastic" ; Brian Attebery ; 11. "Genre vs. Mode" ; Veronica Hollinger ; Part II. Science Fiction as Medium ; 12. "Film" ; Mark Bould ; 13. "Radio and Television" ; J.P. Telotte ; 14. "Animation" ; Paul Wells ; 15. "Art and Illustration" ; Jerome Winter ; 16. "Comics" ; Corey Creekmur ; 17. "Video Games" ; Pawe? Frelik ; 18. "Digital Arts and Hypertext" ; James Tobias ; 19. "Music" ; John Cline ; 20. "Performance Art" ; Steve Dixon ; 21. "Architecture" ; Nic Clear ; 22. "Theme Parks" ; Leonie Cooper ; Part III. Science Fiction as Culture ; 23. "The Culture of Science" ; Sherryl Vint ; 24. "Automation" ; Roger Luckhurst ; 25. "Military Culture" ; Steffen Hantke ; 26. "Atomic Culture and the Space Race" ; David Seed ; 27. "UFOs, Scientology, and Other SF Religions" ; Gregory L. Reece ; 28. "Advertising and Design" ; Jonathan M. Woodham ; 29. "Countercultures" ; Rob Latham ; 30. "Sexuality" ; Patricia Melzer ; 31. "Body Modification" ; Ross Farnell ; 32. "Cyberculture" ; Thomas Foster ; 33. "Retrofuturism and Steampunk" ; Elizabeth Guffey and Kate C. Lemay ; Part IV. Science Fiction as Worldview ; 34. "The Enlightenment" ; Adam Roberts ; 35. "The Gothic" ; William Hughes ; 36. "Darwinism" ; Patrick B. Sharp ; 37. "Colonialism and Postcolonialism" ; John Rieder ; 38. "Pseudoscience" ; Anthony Enns ; 39. "Futurology" ; Andrew M. Butler ; 40. "Posthumanism" ; Colin Milburn ; 41. "Feminism" ; Lisa Yaszek ; 42. "Libertarianism and Anarchism" ; Neil Easterbrook ; 43. "Afrofuturism" ; De Witt Douglas Kilgore ; 44. "Utopianism" ; Phillip E. Wegner

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Book SynopsisLeo Bersani is an eminent literary critic whose influential work spans half a century. His vast, in many ways unclassifiable, oeuvre has traversed and blurred the boundaries of the disciplines of modern French literature, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, art history, film theory, philosophical aesthetics, and masculinity studies and sexuality studies. Oxford University Press published Bersani''s first book, on Proust, in 1965, but the work has long been out of print. This new edition comes in response to a recent renewal of interest among philosophers of literature, among others, and features a new preface from the author.Table of ContentsPreface ; Introduction ; Chapter One ; Fantasies of the Self and the World ; I. "Je n'etais plus qu'un coeur qui battait" ; II. Self-effacement and self-projection ; III. The vulnerable self and its many deaths ; Chapter Two ; The Anguish and Inspiration of Jealousy ; I. The mystery of other people's desires ; II. Jealousy and the tortured imagination ; III. Strategies to immobilize the "etres de fuite," and "les joies de la solitude" ; IV. From the lover's anguish to the novelist's possessions ; Chapter Three ; The Language of Love ; I. The loved one's absence from the lover's desires ; II. The self as an "appareil vide": a critique of psychological analysis ; III. The "notes fondamentales" from the perspective of memory: psychological analysis reinstated ; IV. The monologue of love as a dialogue ; V. The merging of fantasy and realism ; Chapter Four ; Social Contexts: Observation and Invention ; I. The aristocracy's glamor ; II. Society as a work of art: the poetry of the past ; III. Reflections of Marcel's psychology in the social world ; IV. "Le royaume du neant" ; V. Variety of characterization and the general laws ; VI. Marcel the character and Proust the author ; Chapter Five ; Marcel's Vocation ; I. The artist and the "residu reel" of personality ; II. Involuntary memory and the work of art ; III. The "accent" of individuality in literary style ; IV. Metaphor: "les surfaces sont devenues reflechissantes" ; Conclusion ; Notes ; Index

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Book SynopsisConceived as a literary form to aggressively publicize the abolitionist cause in the United States, the African American slave narrative remains a powerful and illuminating demonstration of America''s dark history. Yet the genre''s impact extended far beyond the borders of the U.S. The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel investigates the shaping influence of writings by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and other former slaves on British fiction in the years between the Abolition Act and the Emancipation Proclamation. Julia Sun-Joo Lee argues that novelists such as Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charles Dickens integrated into their works generic elements of the slave narrative-from the emphasis on literacy as a tool of liberation, to the teleological journey from slavery to freedom, to the ethics of resistance over submission. It contends that Victorian novelists used these tropes in an attempt to access the slave narrative''s paradigm of resistance, illuminatTrade ReviewLee's book is valuable not only for demonstrating how much Victorian novels have in common with American slave narratives, but for beginning to address the questions this kinship raises...This book breaks new ground, and later critics will build upon it to deepen our understanding of the relationship between the slave narrative and the Victorian novel. * Victorian Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction. The American Slave Narrative and the Victorian Novel ; Chapter One. The Slave Narrative of Jane Eyre ; Chapter Two. Slaves and Brothers in Pendennis ; Chapter Three. Female Slave Narratives: "The Grey Woman" and My Lady Ludlow ; Chapter Four. The Return of the "Unnative": North and South ; Chapter Five. Fugitive Plots in Great Expectations ; Epilogue. The Plot Against England: The Dynamiter ; Works Cited

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Book SynopsisCicero''s speech on behalf of L. Lucinius Murena, newly elected to the consulship of 62 BCE but immediately prosecuted for electoral bribery, is especially famous for its digressions and valuable for its insights into the complex political wrangles of the late 60s. It is, however, a speech more commonly excerpted and cited than read in its entirety, though whether the absence of an English-language commentary is a cause or effect of that situation remains uncertain. In short, a pedagogical commentary on this important and strange speech is long overdue. Distinguished Latinist Elaine Fantham''s commentary is noteworthy for its ability to elucidate not only the rhetorical structure of this speech but the rationale behind Cicero''s strategic decisions in creating that structure. It also calls attention to the stylistic features like word choice, rhetorical figures, and rhythmic effects that make the speech so effective, and explains with care and precision the political, social, and histoTrade Review[I]t contains much that will be of use and interest to advanced students and scholars * Katherine A. Liong, Exemplaria Classica *Table of ContentsMap ; Introduction ; Commentary ; Appendix: Related Texts ; Bibliography ; Index of Names and Places

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Book SynopsisColligan argues that Nineteenth-century obscenity was caught up in the global cultural traffic of print technology, international trade and exoticism. She reveals that obscenity intersected majority and minority culture, searched out new print and visual media, and built commercial and fantasmatic global networks for its continuation and survival.Trade Review'Colette Colligan's fascinating book...draws on material from all these collections, and is itself an important contribution to the historical understanding of obscenity, as well as, more locally, to the famously vexed subject of the sexual mores of the Victorians.' - Gowan Dawson, Archives (British Records Association) 'A book with great value for helping us to understand obscenity's complex role in modernizing and globalizing nineteenth-century Britain.' - Allyson Pease, Victorian StudiesTable of ContentsList of Figures List of Plates Acknowledgements PART I: THE TRAFFIC IN OBSCENITY Introduction An "Extensive Traffic": The Print Trade in Nineteenth-Century British Obscenity PART II: HAREMS AND LONDON'S UNDERGROUND PRINT CULTURE The Unruly Copies of Byron's Don Juan : Harems, Popular Print Culture, and The Age of Mechanical Reproduction Harem Novels: The Lustful Turk to Moslem Erotism PART III: SIR RICHARD BURTON, THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, AND ARAB SEX MANUALS "Esoteric Pornography": Sir Richard Burton's Translation of the Arabian Nights "A Race of Born Pederasts": Pederasty, The Perfumed Garden , and The Scented Garden Collecting English Obscenity: Marriage-Love and Women amongst the Arabs and Old Man Young Again PART IV: THE ENGLISH VICE AND TRANSATLANTIC SLAVERY The Prurient Gaze: The Flogged Slave Woman among British Abolitionists Slavery Obscenity in the 1880s: The Pearl and The Cremorne Slavery Obscenity at the Turn-of-the-Century: Dolly Morton to White Women Slaves Whipping in the Twentieth Century: The Fugitive Image PART V: JAPANESE EROTIC PRINTS AND OBSCENITY OF THE FIN-DE-SIÈCLE The Traffic in Japanese Erotic Prints Aubrey Beardsley's Libidinal Line: Japonisme, Art Nouveau, and Obscenity Japanese Prostitution: Amorous Adventures of a Japanese Gentleman to Yoshiwara: The Nightless City Coda: The Obscenity of the Real Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a broad concept of desire, informed by poststructuralist theorists this book examines the range of Hardy's work. It demonstrates the sustained nature of his thinking about desire, its relationship to the social and symbolic network in which human subjectivity is constituted and art's potential to offer fulfilment to the desiring subject.Trade Review"Jane Thomas has provided us with the most thoroughgoing study of Hardy and desire since J. Hillis Miller's four decades ago, and offers a wonderfully panoramic approach to the subject. Thomas uses Lacan, Butler and other thinkers, always in an approachable manner, to meditate on the fleeting, obscure and unstable nature of desire in Hardy's texts, extracting a surprising range of reference - from the impossibility of nostalgia to the sharpness of desire across class divisions; from the pleasures of cross-dressing to Sapphic desire seen as a kind of utopian space. The study ranges with assurance across Hardy's corpus, and is illuminating on both the major and minor novels and the poetry." Professor Tim Armstrong, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK ''Thomas's finely articulated chapters serves to take the argument forward, with exemplary attention to textual evidence and an impressive grasp of ideas . . . this is a book which makes a notable contribution to Hardy studies and one whose argument will doubtless generate further fruitful debate.'' Hardy Journal "In offering a persuasive analysis of Hardy's art as an exercise and expression of (often frustrated or foiled) desire, Jane Thomas has made an outstanding contribution to Hardy studies." J. B. Bullen, Victorian StudiesTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Hardy and Desire House and Home: Nostalgic Desire and the Locus of the Self Desire, Female Amity and 'Sapphic Space' Sexual Desire and the Lure' of the Erotic Poor Men and Ladies: Aspirational Desire As You Like It: Cross-Dressing and the Gendered Expression of Desire Art, Aesthetics and Masculine Desire 'Scanned Across the Dark Space':Poetry, Desire and Aesthetic Fulfilment Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis lively translation accurately captures the wit and uncensored bawdiness of the epigrams of Martial, who satirized Roman society, both high and low, in the first century CE. His pithy little poems amuse, but also offer vivid insight into the world of patrons and clients, doctors and lawyers, prostitutes, slaves, and social climbers in ancient Rome.

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Book SynopsisA study of ekphrasis - a self-contained aside that generates a pause in the narrative to describe a work of art or other object - in Virgil's final masterpiece, the "Aeneid". The author shows how the descriptions provide metaphors for the entire poem and reinforce its ambiguities.

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Book SynopsisA poet, writer and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was seen as a dominating cultural presence in the second half of the 19th century. Jerome McGann, scholar of the 19th and 20th century, presents this selection of Rossetti's poetry, prose and original translations, with commentaries and notes.Trade Review"This is the most coherent and intelligible selection of Rossetti's work available in print, and it has the most interpretatively suggestive notes. Its inclusion of important writings not available elsewhere will expand the current understanding of Rossetti." Elizabeth Helsinger, University of Chicgo

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Book SynopsisCharts some of Modernism's key stages, from Durer, Rabelais, and Cervantes to the present, bringing together an array of artists, musicians, and writers - including Beckett, Borges, Friedrich, Cezanne, Stevens, Robbe-Grillet, Beethoven, and Wordsworth.Trade Review"'This short, fierce book is clearly very personal... Nevertheless, I enjoyed the sinuousness and vigour of Josipovici's arguments.' (Sam Leith, Sunday Times) 'What can't be faulted is the plaintive logic running through this book. In cultural terms, we live in deeply conservative times... Yet can anyone, now, name the successful middlebrow writer of 1922 or 1915? Of course not. That alone should give Josipovici comfort.' (Tom McCarthy, The Guardian) 'Josipovici's erudite and intelligent polemic raises more questions than it answers - always a good thing.' (Tom McCarthy, Daily Telegraph) 'Now in his seventies, he is formidably cultivated... Not that he condescends. Josipovici carries his learning lightly and the meditations on Modernism which make up the body of the book are instructive and accessible... This is a book... one can't help rather enjoying.' (John Sutherland, Literary Review) '... a welcome intervention in the long debate about the difference between art and entertainment.' (James Purdon, The Observer) 'His book is similarly eloquent, besides being, in its task of charting modernism's uniqueness, ingenious, unexpected, astute and insightful. It's also - because of its passion and intelligence - readable, in a way a modernist would approve of...' (Amit Chaudhuri, The Independent) 'Entertaining as his assault is, this is a more challenging and ambitious book than simply a jeremiad on the contemporary cultural climate.' (Ronan McDonald, The London Magazine)"

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Book SynopsisSuggests seven walking tours, and describes points of interest along each route related to Hemingway's life in Paris.

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Book SynopsisIn Hermann Hesse''s Beneath the Wheel, Hans Giebernath lives among the dull and respectable townsfolk of a sleepy Black Forest village. When he is discovered to be an exceptionally gifted student, the entire community presses him onto a path of serious scholarship. Hans dutifully follows the regimen of study and endless examinations, his success rewarded only with more crushing assignments. When Hans befriends a rebellious young poet, he begins to imagine other possibilities outside the narrowly circumscribed world of the academy. Finally sent home after a nervous breakdown, Hans is revived by nature and romance, and vows never to return to the gray conformity of the academic system.

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Book SynopsisMiner takes the first critical look at this development and offers a serious reading of five of the most famous twentieth-century women's bestsellers--Gone with the Wind, Forever Amber, Peyton Place, Valley of the Dolls, and Scruples.

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Table of ContentsThe Welsh Influence Expanding Interweaving Inventing Aesthetic Uses of Celtic Myth and Legend Thematic Uses of Celtic Myth and Legend Conclusions Appendix A: The Mabinogi Appendix B: The Four Branches: A Brief Précis Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA pioneering scholarly examination of the rich and fascinating fields of science fiction and fantasy art, this book stimulates scholarly interest in these areas by offering both surveys of the entire history of these traditions and focused examinations of particular genres and artists.Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Iconology of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art by George Slusser Approaches to Science Fiction Art Artists in Wonderland: Toward a True History of Science Fiction Art by Gary Westfahl The Northrop Continuum: Science Fiction Illustration and the Flying Wing Aircraft by Howard V. Hendrix Less is More: Empty Space, Invisibility, and Modern Design by Kathleen Church Plummer "Getting It Right": A Reflection on Titans and Technologies by Gregory Benford The Vision of Space: The Artist's View by Samuel Vasbinder Shapes from the Edge of Time: The Science Fiction Artwork of Richard M. Powers by Kirk Hampton and Carol MacKay Approaches to Fantasy Art Notes on the Geography of Bad--and Good--Fantasy Art by John Clute Archaeological Fieldwork in the Paper Tiger Stacks Report #43: A Short Happy History of Fantasy Art by John Grant Wisdom and Clemency: The Collaborations of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd by Lynne Lundquist and Gary Westfahl "And What Happened After": How J.R.R. Tolkien Visualized, and Other Artists Re-Visualized, the Denizens of Middle-earth by Beatrix Karthaus-Hunt Conan the Oxymoron: The Civilized Savage of Robert E. Howard and Frank Frazetta by David Hinckley Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAcknowledgements Abbreviations Between the Lines: Re-reading Stevie Smith and Literary Modernism 'The Times are the Times of the Black Split Heart': Stevie Smith's Life and Work in Context The Trilogy's Take-Off in the Thirties: A Close-Cultural Reading of Novel on Yellow Paper Framing the War: The Second Two Novels of the Trilogy Between Waving and Drowning: Stevie Smith's Poems and Stories Works Cited IndexTrade Review'...[a] dazzlingly intelligent reading of Stevie Smith's work.' - Will May, The Oxonian ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Abbreviations Between the Lines: Re-reading Stevie Smith and Literary Modernism 'The Times are the Times of the Black Split Heart': Stevie Smith's Life and Work in Context The Trilogy's Take-Off in the Thirties: A Close-Cultural Reading of Novel on Yellow Paper Framing the War: The Second Two Novels of the Trilogy Between Waving and Drowning: Stevie Smith's Poems and Stories Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisAlfred is the only English King honoured with this name and is credited with various successes (the foundation of a navy, English education system and religious revival). The medieval 'Life' of King Alfred of Wessex purports to be written by Asser, a monk in the King's service.Trade Review'Alfred Smyth's The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great is a pathbreaking work...a sophisticated introduction and study of the entire field of Alfredian biography, ancient and modern...The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great also serves as an excellent introduction to the text of the Life itself and to the controversies surrounding its creation and history.' - Professor Daniel Melia, University of California, Berkeley 'Alfred Smyth's new translation and commentary challenges consensus opinion at every level...an extensive commentary relates the Life to the new and still-developing awareness of historical writing in the late Anglo-Saxon period...Smyth's text asks new questions and provides new answers, offering a more complex account of the origins of England, and of English History, than has been possible to date.' - Tom Shippey, Saint Louis University, Missouri '...this translation...is useful for presenting a version without many of the previous editorial emendations...' - J.L. Leland, Choice Reviews from previous book: 'Smyth's book, then, must stand as the definitive account of the reign.' - Peter Ackroyd, The Times 'This is a glorious book. It rescues a great English ruler from some of the more obtuse concepts and prejudices of our own time, and builds more carefully on ninth-century foundations than any other biography yet published.' - Eric Christiansen, The SpectatorTable of ContentsAbbreviations Introduction [A]Translation of the Life of King Alfred [B] Commentary A Tour Around the Manuscripts The Author of the Life The Author's Latin Style The Author's Use of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Why Was the Life of King Alfred Written at Ramsay in C.A.D. 1000? Index

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Book SynopsisHighlighting popular works by P.D. James, Colin Dexter, Ian Pears and Umberto Eco, among others, this subtle and intelligently written monograph examines the treatment of religion in the genre of contemporary murder mystery novels, and the implications of this phenomenon for understanding Christian thought in a post-Christian society.

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Book SynopsisIs horror an antiestablishment force an argument for social revolution? Is it a liberating expose of human nature and a peek at the dark side of the unconscious? Or is it pure evil, designed to corrupt and deprave? Starting from such questions about the nature of horror, this book is an accessibly written history of the genre.Table of ContentsHating other - religion, nationhood and identity; mad science - Frankenstein and his monsters; children of the night - vampires and the undead; monsters from the id - horror, madness and the mind; forbidden knowledge - textuality, metafiction and books; them! - narratives of pestilence and invasion; hail Satan! - diabolism, the occult and demonic possession; transformations - body horror.

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Book SynopsisDiscover who’s who and what’s what in the Star Wars universe with this beautifully illustrated guide-now in full color for the first time.When it comes to extraterrestrial life-forms, there’s more to science fiction’s most famous galaxy than just Jawas, Wookiees, Ewoks, and Hutts. From the skylanes of Coruscant to the worlds of the Outer Rim, an untold number of species populate those planets far, far away. And if you confuse Gungans with Gamorreans, or don’t know a bantha from a tauntaun, you definitely need the in-depth data that only this revised, expanded, and updated guide can deliver.This comprehensive overview includes beings from all six of the classic movies-plus the novels, cartoon series, comics, and video games. It’s an even bigger cross section of species than what you’ll find in the Mos Eisley cantina. And each entry, from acklay to Zabrak, from amphibians to vacuum-breathers, features everything you need to know, including• complete physical description and official designation, so you can tell your sentients from your non-sentients, and your humanoids from your insectoids• homeworld: from dry and dusty Tatooine, stormy and waterlogged Kamino, to arctic Hoth, and countless other strange and varied worlds• phonetic pronunciation: Askajian, H’nemthe, Iktotchi, Ssi-ruu, and Xexto/Quermian aren’t as easy to say as they are to, er, spell• notable appearance: a listing of one of the more significant appearances of each species in the teeming Star Wars storylinePlus, this brand-new edition includes a glossary of crucial descriptive terms and a completely original, full color illustration for each of more than one hundred individual species. It’s a big galaxy, and someone has to organize it. Count on Star Wars®: The New Essential Guide to Alien Species-and don’t leave your homeworld without it.

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Book SynopsisCompilation of intense, spirited verse which explores the realms of religion, politics, nature, violence, and old age.

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Book SynopsisProbably de Beauvoir's strangest and most compelling novel, this is the captivating story of a beautiful young actress who revives a downcast stranger at a French resort.

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Book SynopsisThis highly acclaimed biography looks beyond the insistent image of the modest Victorian lady, the slave to duty in the shadow of tombstones. Instead we see a strong, fiery woman who shaped her own life and transformed it into art. Lyndall Gordon looks at the shared gifts and class ambitions of the Bronte family, and also at significant people-the active feminist Mary Taylor, the demanding mentor Constantin Heger, the rising publisher George Smith-whom Charlotte strove to possess in life and fiction. Drawing on unpublished letters, the Roe Head Journal, early stories, the manuscript of Villette, and her last, unfinished novel, Lyndall Gordon explores the gaps in Charlotte Bronte's life. How did she arrive at her understanding of passion from a woman's point of view? Could she resolve the testing conflict between a writer's life and a seemingly incongruous marriage to the devoted curate Arthur Bell Nicholls? Looking into the shadow between the facts, Gordon takes biography into that uns

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Book Synopsis[R]eads like a novel, filled with strongly drawn characters and a wealth of lively detail.... The book offers as much insight into the creative process as it does into this crucial period of our history.Lee SmithTrade Review"Brilliant. . . . Carefully researched and masterfully constructed." -- Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal

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Book SynopsisIn personal essays that read like short stories, writers describe their life-altering encounters with books.Trade Review"This is a wonderful book - a must for anyone who reads, who writes or who aspires to either. It is such a joyous celebration of the intimate relationship between reader and writer, it makes you want to run to the bookshelf, to the library, to the bookstore and read, read, read. These essays remind us of why we read and why we write - they remind us of the power of stories to inspire, entertain, and alter the course of our lives." A. M Homes "Remarkable Reads and remarkable delights! This is no literary seminar, it's a carnival of unintended consequences." Tom Wolfe

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Book SynopsisWith the passing of each year, Ulysses receives wider recognition and greater acclaim as a modern literary classic. To comprehend Joyce's masterpiece fully, to gain insight into its significance and structure, the serious reader will find this analytical and systematic guide invaluable. In this exegesis, written under Joyce's supervision, Stuart Gilbert presents a work that is at once scholarly, authoritative and stimulating.

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Book SynopsisHarry Potter. The name conjures up J.K. Rowling's wondrous world of magic that has captured the imaginations of millions on both the printed page and the silver screen with bestselling novels and blockbuster films. The true magic found in this children's fantasy series lies not only in its appeal to people of all ages but in its connection to the greater world of classic literature. Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures explores the literary landscape of themes and genres J.K. Rowling artfully wove throughout her novels-and the influential authors and stories that inspired her. From Jane Austen's Emma and Charles Dickens's class struggles, through the gothic romances of Dracula and Frankenstein and the detective mysteries of Dorothy L. Sayers, to the dramatic alchemy of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and William Shakespeare, Rowling cast a powerful spell with the great books of English literature that transform

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Book SynopsisAN ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE DARK TOWER SERIES—INCLUDING BOOK-BY-BOOK ANALYSIS AND INSIGHT INTO STEPHEN KING'S CREATIVE PROCESS.In 1970, Stephen King embarked on what would become the crowning achievement in his literary career-the Dark Tower. The seven-volume series, written and published over a period of 30 years, was inspired by Robert Browning's poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.With the full cooperation of Stephen King himself, The Road to the Dark Tower examines the epic journey of the author to complete a story that threatened to overwhelm him. In this indispensable companion, Bev Vincent presents a book-by-book analysis of each volume in the series, tracing the Dark Tower's connections to King's other novels including The Stand, Insomnia, and Hearts in Atlantis, and offering insights from the author about the

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Book SynopsisA COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO STEPHEN KING'S BESTSELLING DARK TOWER SERIES.“A valuable tool for exploring the series. Both newcomers and frequent visitors to Mid-World will be informed and delighted.”—Stephen KingThe story of Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger, and his lifelong quest to reach the tower and save humanity across infinite parallel worlds is one that has consumed Stephen King throughout his career as characters and concepts crossed back and forth between the series and the rest of his fictional universe.The Dark Tower Companion is the ultimate compendium to King’s evolving magnum opus, presenting the mythology, history, and geography of this epic fantasy that has captivated generations of readers. Featuring interviews with Stephen King, Ron Howard, Dark Tower expert Robin Furth and others, Bev Vincent reveals The Dark Tower’s influential literary origins, examines its connections to the

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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