Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisAn examination of passages in Homeric texts which either present semantic or logical difficulties or are incoherent or inconsistent. Extracts from the Iliad and the Odyssey are translated into English with a detailed analysis of ambiguous terms.

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Book SynopsisHalf a dozen young men find themselves at the end of their university years facing the awful prospect that they must now support themselves. They decide to found an Ideal Commonwealth, in the Navigator Islands - Samoa (where, by a wonderful coincidence, a decade later, Stevenson himself eventually settled and where he died and is buried). Here - they reason - work and money, dreary offices and dreary jobs, will not be known or needed. But capital is required to start even an Ideal Commonwealth. One of their number knows of "a real, glowing, gaudy, old-high treasure" - gold and jewels in a trunk in a family castle in the Scottish Highlands, theirs for the stealing, and ...Robert Louis Stevenson began writing this comic novel in April or May 1877, when he was twenty-six, and left it unfinished - after 30,000 words, in nine chapters - two years later. It shows a side of him whom most readers have never known existed: a satirical Stevenson making great fun, in a manner worthy of his contemporaries Gilbert and Sullivan, of the events and passions, the personalities and the predicaments, of his day. Previously published only in a French translation, it now takes its rightful place among his memorable early works of fiction. Transcribed, introduced, and annotated by the noted scholar Roger G. Swearingen from Stevenson's unpublished manuscript (now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California), this edition reveals glimpses of the author's developing literary skills and of his complex and often madcap personal temperament. The extensive and illustrated annotations are fascinating in themselves, not least for the references to the contemporary late-Victorian scene.

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Book SynopsisFeaturing close readings of commonly studied texts, this book takes students of Children's Literature through the key works, their contexts and critical and popular afterlives. "Children's Literature in Context" is a clear, accessible and concise introduction to children's literature and its wider contexts. It begins by introducing key issues involved in the study of children's literature and its social, cultural and literary contexts. Close readings of commonly studied texts including Lewis Carroll's Alice books, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", "The Lion", "The Witch and the Wardrobe", the "Harry Potter" series and the "His Dark Materials" trilogy highlight major themes and ways of reading children's literature. A chapter on afterlives and adaptations explores a range of wider cultural texts including the film adaptations of "Harry Potter", "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Golden Compass". The final section introduces key critical interpretations from different perspectives on issues including innocence, gender, fantasy, psychoanalysis and ideology. 'Review, Reading and Research' sections give suggestions for further reading, discussion and research. Introducing texts, contexts and criticism, this is a lively and up-to-date resource for anyone studying children's literature. Texts and Contexts is a series of clear, concise and accessible introductions to key literary fields and concepts. The series provides the literary, critical, historical context for texts and authors in a specific literary area in a way that introduces a range of work in the field and enables further independent study and reading.Trade ReviewChildren's Literature in Context is a meeting ground where literary history meets literary criticism in a broad intertextual reach. Here is a journey for the reader who travels from definitions of the genre to socio-political contexts, to close readings of classic and contemporary texts, to a critical framework of interpretations and perspectives, to expansive cultural adaptations. At each juncture McCulloch interweaves theory with striking ease, linking children's literature to a larger world of literature and philosophy. Her readings of texts are fresh, provocative, coherent. Designed to serve as a textbook, McCulloch's work is also a handbook to the field, offering a range of resources for students and scholars, a spacious landscape. -- Anne Lundin, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Library & Information Studies, USA Featured in the Times Higher Education Literature Textbook round-up.Table of ContentsSeries Preface; Part I: Contexts; 1. Social and Cultural Contexts; 2. Literary Contexts; Review, Reading and Research; Part II: Texts; 3. Readings of Key Texts; Review, Reading and Research; Part III: Wider Contexts; 4. Afterlives and Adaptations; 5. Critical Contexts; Review, Reading and Research; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisGertrude Stein and Alice Babette Toklas met on Sunday 8 September 1907, in Paris. From that day on they were together, until Gertrude's death on Saturday 27 July 1946. Everyone who was anyone went to their salons at the rue de Fleurus. They became a legendary couple, photographed by Stieglitz, Man Ray & Cecil Beaton, painted by Picasso and written about in the works of Hemingway, Paul Bowles and Sylvia Beach. "Gertrude and Alice", now with a new foreword, is the highly acclaimed story of their remarkable life together, of the paths that led them to each other, and of Alice's years of widowhood after Gertrude had died. From letters, memoirs and the published writings of Stein and Toklas and with rich illustrations, Whitbread Award-winner Diana Souhami brings their characters, beliefs and achievements vividly to life: 'so emphatically and uncompromisingly themselves, that the world could do nothing less than accept them as they were'.Trade Review'A brilliant and witty chronicle of one of the happiest marriages in modern literary history. Not only star-studded but light-filled.' - John Richardson, author of 'A Life of Picasso'Table of ContentsForeword List of Illustrations Gertrude and Alice Gertrude's Early Years Alice's Early Years First Love for Gertrude The rue de Fleurus Alice Meets Gertrude Ousting the Others Marriage The First War Famous Men, and Women Country Life The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas America Another War Peace Carrying on for Gertrude References Select Bibliography Credits Index

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Book SynopsisThe novel "Woe From Wit" by the writer and satirist, Griboyedov, is part of the Bristol Classical Press Russian texts series. The series is designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing A Level and undergraduate market for texts in the Russian language. Each text comes with English notes and vocabulary, and with an introduction by an editor with an expert knowledge both of the work and of its literary and cultural context.

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Book SynopsisEvgenii Zamiatin's seminal antiutopian satire "We" (written 1920-1) is one of the most celebrated works of twentieth century Russian literature. Set one thousand years in the future, it is a witty yet terrifying picture of a future society in which reason is all-conquering and mankind has been enslaved by a dictator called 'the benefactor'. This new study presents both a synthesis of existing criticism and a new reading of the novel. The first section deals with "We" in the context of the Russian Civil War, showing how Zamiatin's contemporaries interpreted it as a satire on life in Soviet Russia. The major trends in the diverse body of modern criticism are then surveyed. The longer second part of the study consists of a detailed reading of the novel based on close textual analysis of the forty 'entries' of its narrator's diary.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a thoroughly edited text of Antonio Machado's Campos de Castilla, one of twentieth-century Spain's best-loved volumes of poetry. An extensive Introduction offers an in-depth commentary on his themes, techniques and metaphysical manner. In addition to examining the various influences on his work - Krausism, Bergsonism and the '98 Generation's concern for "el problema de Espana" - the Introduction looks closely at Machado's life, especially the years of compisition, 1907-1917, and it traces the critical phases in his poetic development: the discovery of the Castilian landscape in Soria, his growing political consciousness, his personal tragedy as a bereaved husband, his existential meditations in Baeza. Annotations in the form of Endnotes provide additional factual information and clarify points of difficulty in the text.

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Book SynopsisAlexander Solzhenitsyn was an unknown author until the publication of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962, the book that was to win him the Nobel Prize in 1970. It is an account of a barely literate Russian peasant's surviving a single day in one of Stalin's labour camps. It depicted the intricacies and resilience of the human spirit in a style comparable with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. This study gauges the political and literary impact that the book has made in Russia and abroad, and examines its more universal, intrinsic qualities.

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Book SynopsisOne of Pushkin's most famous works, "Eugene Onegin" has been called an "enclyclopaedia of Russian life", a definition which suggests the mass of ideas, impressions, thoughts and possibilities to be found in the story of the doomed love of two members of Russian high society in the 1830s. This study aims to offer an up-to-date guide to the text and to the critical debate, as well as providing easy-to-follow "readings". It takes a fresh look at its themes, ideas and intricacies, and suggests how scholars and non-specialists alike may gain greater understanding of Pushkin's work.

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Book SynopsisGreat-granddaughter of Minerve, first woman of the Guadeloupean branch of the Lougandor family to be freed from slavery in 1848, the elderly Telumée tells the story of her own difficult life and that of her ancestors. It is a poor black woman’s tale of heroic survival, set in the early 20th century, harsh agrarian environment of a Caribbean island. Through the richly imaged narration of a constantly evolving, cultural significant and always entertaining saga, the author leads the reaer into her native West Indian realm of legends, magic, folkloric wisdom and traditional reverence for the elderly and the past. Her protagonist, Telumée, embodies the innate strength and nobility of women in general and of black Caribbean women in particular. Published in 1972, this book received Elle magazine’s literary prize. This edition reflects the editor’s personal acquaintance with the author, and her country. It provides a synthesis of the latest critical studies, and a thorough interpretation of Creole terms, symbolic imagery and a unique cultural background.Table of ContentsIntroduction Notes Bibliography CONTENTS Pluie et vent sur Telumee Miracle Textual Notes

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Book SynopsisThis is a fictional account of one woman's experience following the arrest of her son during the Yezhov purges. Drawing on the author's own experience, this novella paints an almost documentary-style picture of life in Leningrad during this period. The story of the publication of the book, written in 1939-40 but not published in the Soviet Union until 1988, is treated in the introduction, which also contains a brief biography of the author, a vocabulary and notes.

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Book SynopsisThis is part three of a four-unit prose reading course designed for beginners in Greek and other learners wishing to consolidate their reading skills. Particular attention is paid to idiomatic usage (both in Greek and English), word order and the use of particles and particle-combinations, while practical guidance is given on mastering the verbal systems and other features of the language which beginners generally find problematic. The four units may be studied in succession as part of a progressive course, but each unit is sufficiently self-contained to permit the persuit of particular interests.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction to the course Demosthenes Philippic III: Text Morphology and Syntax Notes Suggestions for Further Reading CONTENTS

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Book SynopsisThis is part four of a four-unit prose reading course designed for beginners in Greek and other learners wishing to consolidate their reading skills. Particular attention is paid to idiomatic usage (both in Greek and English), word order and the use of particles and particle-combinations, while practical guidance is given on mastering the verbal systems and other features of the language which beginners generally find problematic. The four units may be studied in succession as part of a progressive course, but each unit is sufficiently self-contained to permit the persuit of particular interests.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction to the course Thucydides Events at Pylos and Sphacteria: Text Morphology and Syntax Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn 1882, D.B. Munro wrote that "a new Grammar of the Homeric dialect is sorely wanted". Apart from this, the 1891 second edition - long out of print, never available in paperback - nothing has ever replaced Monro's original text. Presented here in its entirety, this is quite simply the most comprehensive account of Homeric Greek grammar, on which all subsequent summaries have been based. Here is the original in full.Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Person-endings Chapter 2: The Tenses Chapter 3. The Moods Chapter 4. Accentuation of the Verb Chapter 5. Nouns and Pronouns Chapter 6. Formation of Nouns Chapter 7. Use of the Cases Chapter 8. Use of the Numbers Chapter 9. The Prepositions Chapter 10. The Verbal Nouns Chapter 11. Use of Pronouns Chapter 12. Use of the Moods Chapter 13. The Particle Chapter 14. Metre and Quantity Appendix Index Errata

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Book SynopsisBy common consent, the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges (18990-1986) is one of the greatest writers to have emerged from Latin America. His finest work is "Ficciones" (1944), a collection of brilliantly-crafted, essay-like short stories. This edition, updated from the original 1976 edition by the same authors, offers a comprehensive selection of stories from the work with a full introduction, detailed notes, a generous vocabulary, bibliography, as well as chronological and other tables.

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Book SynopsisAineias Tacticus (mid-fourth century BC) is not only the earliest but also one of the most historically interesting of ancient military writers. Important, too, as a social commentator, he sheds valuable light on the nature of life and the psychological and strategic preoccupations of a typical Greek city-state (polis) at a time dominated by two extraordinarily atypical ones, Athens and Sparta. In Aineias' work we see what conditions were like in a polis obliged to play a minor and much more passive role in the history of its age - not laying siege like the big players but suffering it. His practical recommendations derive clearly from accumulated personal experience in the first place; but at the same time he also draws copious illustrative material from both Herodotus and Thucydides. This edition has the Greekless reader firmly in mind, providing a fresh modern translation of "How to Survive Under Siege", a comprehensive introduction to Aineias and his work, and a full historical commentary.

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Book SynopsisThe best and most humorous lines in all John B. Keane's writings, selected by himself and presented in convenient small format. The book includes the classics:'A play about sex in Ireland is always ahead of its time.''He thought felo de se was a chap from Ballybunion.''The secret of sex is not to take it seriously.''Marriage is a long, difficult confrontation with short outbreaks of peace.'

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Book Synopsis- A student's guide to the 20th century Russian novelEight of Russia's most popular and significant novels are presented in this important new guide for students. Works include:- "We" by Evgenii Zamiatin- "Red Cavalry" by Isaak Babel- "Envy" by Iurii Olesha- "How the Steel Was Tempered" by Nikolai Ostrovskii- "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov- "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak- "Cancer Ward" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn- "Pushkin House" by Andrei BitovIn each chapter, David Gillespie examines one novel in detail and explores the career of the author and the critical reception of the work. Throughout, considerable reference is made to recently published scholarship and archival materials to provide students and scholars of Russian and Comparative Literature with a guide to these important Russian authors and their place in the world of literature. The book also includes an extensive bibliography of secondary literature and contains textual references in both the original Russian and in English translation.Trade Review'Gillespie has managed to pack in a disproportionately large amount of informative comment. Accessible and incisive, this example of critical analysis makes one want to re-read these works which have become modern classics.'British East-West Journal' ... informative, well balanced and presented very clearly. ... user-friendly.'The Slavonic Review'Every department involved in teaching a course on the Russian novel will be grateful to David Gillespie for this concise and admirably clear analysis...each textual analysis is presented in a soothingly succinct, sophisticated yet accessible way, with critical jargon kept to a minimum; points of style are well illustrated. ...This book will be invaluable to the student'Slavonica'This book will certainly go on the compulsory reading lists for next year.'Irish Slavonic ReviewTable of ContentsEight of Russia's most popular and significant novels are presented in this important new guide for students. Works include: - We by Evgenii Zamiatin - Red Cavalry by Isaak Babel - Envy by Iurii Olesha - How the Steel was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovskii - The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Pushkin House by Andrei Bitov

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Book SynopsisAs a wave of open misogyny swept through French literature and society in the aftermath of the Great War, a new generation of professional women writers took up pen to redress the situation. They disputed the prescriptive social and cultural roles ascribed to women and proposed inspiring new definitions of womanhood. Many critics today are oblivious to women's literary achievements during this period, which remain subject to severe critical neglect. This book analyzes and challenges the way in which these important women writers have been marginalized in the annals of French literary history and offers fresh readings and reappraisals of their thematically and aesthetically innovative works.Trade Review'This very readable study not only opens up new paths for reading [...] and for research (the foonotes and bibliography are excellent), but also provides a carefully reseravhed analysis of theprocess of canon compilation, and a well contextualised discussion of the relationship between history, gender and genre.'Modern and Contemporary France'definitely a useful critical addition to women's studies and contemporary fictional studies, extending the corpus of primary material for both students and specialists, and full of fascinating details'MLR'By re-examining women's writing within both social and literary contexts, this study provides fruitful revalorisation of the period, of romance and autobiography, and will allow other researchers to build on well-considered foundations'Forum for Modern Language Studies

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Book SynopsisThis first systematic study of the controversial Austrian feminist writer, Elfriede Jelinek, offers an extensive survey and analysis of Jelinek's major texts and a discussion of the literary techniques which characterise her writing. Background contextual information on historical and literary developments is provided to help the reader gain a better understanding of Jelinek's writing and her place within current international debates on feminism and literary theory.Trade Review'This study is lucidly written and displays a convincing balance between a close textual analysis and the integration of Jelinik's writing into its socio-political and theoretical context.'Forum for Modern Language Studies'This is an important critical work that uses modern feminist approaches sensibly to reveal the texts of one of the most prominent contemporary writers in German as serious contributions to both literature and social awareness. As the first in a new series 'New Directions in European Writing' it sets a high standard.'MLR'...providing a valuable introduction to J.'s biography, her approach to feminism, the broad development of contemporary Austrian literature, and the critical reaction to her work.'The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies'This is the first monograph dedicated to Jelinek in English, and will doubtless prove an essential undergraduate introduction to this most outspoken and yet paradoxiclly elusive of writers ... This is the first inTable of ContentsJelinek in context; the culture industry as target for literary deconstruction; work, class and the everyday; nature and "Heimat" demystification of the Alpenrepublik; sexuality and subjectivity.

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Book SynopsisSadeq Hedayat is the most famous and the most enigmatic Iranian writer of the 20th century. He was born in 1903 and he lived a troubled life which ended in 1951 with his suicide in Paris. His most celebrated novel, "The Blind Owl" has made an impact far beyond Iranian literary circles and has drawn the attention of Western critics. But Hedayat's impact on the development of modern fiction and on the lives of generations of Iranian intellectuals derives also from his other works and from what was a unique approach to life and art in a rapidly changing society. This book is the first comprehensive study of Hedayat's life and works set against the background of literary and political developments in Iran over the first half of the 20th century. Katouzian discusses Hedayat's life and times and the literary and political circles with which he was associated. But he also emphasises the uniqueness and universality of those ideas that have set Hedayat apart from other Iranian writers of the period and that have given him a mystique that has been instrumental in his posthumous success.Table of ContentsHedayat and modern Persian literature; early years; Hedayat in Europe; life and labour in the golden era; Iranian culture and romantic nationalism; Iranian culture and critical realism; the blind owl - a critical exposition; the origins of the blind owl; hopes and despairs; Hajis and workers; satire and depression; the trial - the message of Hedayat; the execution - Hedayat's suicide; the legend and the man.

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Book SynopsisThis study traces the successive stages of Thackeray's contact with the German world and analyses the discourse he developed as a result. The author is concerned with the fiction and criticism of Thackeray's :Paris Sketch Book" and the impressions related by the cockney traveller in "Irish Sketch Book" and "Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo". Thackeray's own pictorial illustrations of his writings and those by Cruikshank, Doyle and Walker, which he supervised and supplemented, are recognized as an integral part of his German discourse. The study is a chronological one, setting Thackeray's construction of "German" and "the Germans" against the background of his own development and of the social, industrial, cultural and political history of Britain and its continental neighbours.Table of Contents1 The Manners of the Natives 2 First Steps of a Cultural Go-Between 3 Crossing Frontiers 4 Touchstones and Tribulations 5 Travellers, Musicians and Femmes Fatales 6 Past and Present 7 The Kingdom of Punch 8 The German Booth in Vanity Fair 9 The Restless Children of Cain 1o Shifting Perspectives 11 New Excursions in Space and Time 12 Kings and Sugar-Bakers 13 Endgames, Conclusion: A Field Full of German Folk

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Book SynopsisRobert Tressell described his famous book The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as 'the story of twelve months in Hell, told by one of the damned'. This biography of Tressell, first published in 1973, tells the story of a man about whom virtually nothing - not even his real name - was known before Fred Ball began his research. Ball describes the family, educational and social background of Robert Tressell; his move from his early upbringing in Ireland to become a house-painter in Hastings (the Mugsborough of his novel); his becoming a socialist; his travels abroad; his other writings, and his creative work as a specialist sign-writer. Not least, it tells the story of the writing and the publication of his classic book, and of Ball's own role in ensuring the publication of the original unabridged version of the book in 1953. Ball was a researcher of skill and enthusiasm, and his book describes clues and leads, and the way the story fell into place, until he was finally able to do full justice to a man who had hitherto been a somewhat shadowy figure. F.C. Ball was the author of several novels, and of an earlier book on Robert Tressell, Tressell of Mugsborough (1951). He was born and worked throughout most of his life in Hastings.Table of Contents1. Who was Robert Tressell?; 2. Who was Robert Tressell?; 3. Emigration and marriage; 4. Sad South Africa and the Boer War; 5. Mugsborough, England; 6. The dignity of labour, as the man said; 7. Robert at home; 8. Work, boys, and be contented; 9. Artist and artisan; 10. Linguist and model-builder; 11. Bread and circuses, 1906; 12. The rise of the labour movement; 13. Robert joins in; 14. Democracy Ltd; 15. Raw material for a book; 16. A new home; 17. Work with the local societies; 18. Danger; men at work; 19. Political music-hall: the 1908 by-election; 20. Recreations; 21. The writer; 22. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists; 23. Give us this day; 24. A pauper's death; 25. Kathleen and the manuscript; 26. Publication and reactions; 27. 1914-18: the book dies and is born again; 28. Editions and abridgements; 29. 1946: Tressell's handwritten manuscript is found; 30. How the original manuscript was butchered; 31. The manuscript and the building trades unions; 32. Publication in full; 33. How the mutilated manuscript was reconstituted; 34. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists on stage; 35. A dramatic development and a new search; 36. The adventures of the manuscript; 37. Still alive?; 38. 1962: a return from the dead; 39. Family secrets; 40. The painter; 41. A grass plot, a jam jar and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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Book SynopsisThe works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield have had a profound impact on the contemporary world. Together they were The Inklings, a small literary group of friends who set out to explore the 'mythopoeic' or myth-making element in imaginative fiction. The Magical World of the Inklings reveals how each of these writers created a 'magical world' which initiates the reader into hidden and powerful realms of the creative imagination. Originally published in 1990, this new edition has been substantially revised and expanded. It gives a thorough overview of the works of all four writers, including some of their lesser known work and posthumous publications, and explores the very practical way in which the creative imagination is invoked within the reader through the 'magical world' each writer constructed. In this respect, Gareth Knight's background as a leading expert on both magic and myth gives him a unique perspective which takes this book some way beyond the sphere of straightforward literary criticism.Trade Review"Because of the combination of information, understanding and insight on which it is founded, The Magical World of the Inklings is more than outstanding. It is not in the same league with anything else I have come across." - Owen Barfield. "It is only recently that the full play of Lewis's neo-Platonism is reaching a wider public. Nobody has more revealingly shown the occultic and mythical character of this world-view, and its influence on Lewis's fiction, than did Gareth Knight in his superb book The Magical World of the Inklings." - Dr Andrew Walker, Director of the Centre for Theology and Culture, King's College London.

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