Literary studies: fiction Books

Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive.When a strange, meteor-like object lands in the heart of England, the inhabitants of Earth find themselves victims of a terrible attack. A ruthless race of Martians, armed with heat rays and poisonous smoke, is intent on destroying everything that stands in its way. As the unnamed hero struggles to find his way across decimated wastelands, the fate of the planet hangs in the balance . . .H. G. Wells was a pioneer of modern science fiction. First serialised in the UK in 1897, The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to depict conflict with an extraterrestrial race, and has influenced countless adaptations and sequels.Trade Review‘groundbreaking … a true classic that has pointed the way not just for science-fiction writers, but for how we as a civilisation might think of ourselves’ Guardian ‘[Wells’ work is] astonishingly rich in human and historical interest … he foresaw the invention of, among other things, television, tanks, aerial warfare and the atom bomb’ David Lodge ‘I personally consider the greatest of English living writers [to be] H. G. Wells’ Upton Sinclair

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Book Synopsis''You cannot find peace by avoiding life'' Virginia WoolfAn intimate portrait of Virginia, the best-known and most influential Bloomsbury author of them all - ''All you need to know about the modernist, feminist icon'' TIME OUT''A gem'' SUNDAY TIMES''As a short introduction to Virginia Woolf this deceptively brief book could hardly be bettered and achieves high status instantly as a significant work of reference in its own right'' THE TIMESVirginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the literary giants of the twentieth century. She was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, and her writings were works of astonishing originality. Nigel Nicolson is the son of Vita Sackville-West, who was Virginia Woolf''s most intimate friend, and for a short time her lover. He spent many days in her company and he has threaded his recollections of her throughout this unique narrative of her life.Trade ReviewAll you need to know about the modernist, feminist icon ... If only all literary lives were as succinct * TIME OUT *From his unique position, Nigel Nicolson is able to combine intimacy with scholarship ... an excellent introduction to her life and work * MAIL ON SUNDAY *This lucid portrait is a gem * SUNDAY TIMES *As a short introduction to Virginia Woolf this deceptively brief book could hardly be bettered and achieves high status instantly as a significant work of reference in its own right * THE TIMES *This little book is not only a delight to read but also of lasting importance * SPECTATOR *Nothing beats the excitement of feeling that you're in the presence of someone who once walked with giants ... Nigel Nicolson's recollections of the woman whom he regarded "like a favourite aunt" are to be recommended * DAILY TELEGRAPH *This is an unusual (and unusually charming) biography ... It is a quality of wide-eyed observation that gives this book its charm. Woolf comes alive in it ... vivid vignettes are the essence of Nicolson's book ... Nicolson's personal recollections run like a silver thread through this biography. But he tells the whole story of Woolf's life with authority - affectionately but not uncritically. He is especially good at describing the trance-like states which went to the writing of Woolf's best novels * SCOTSMAN *Nicolson writes with authority on the Bloomsbury Group ... [he] gives a thorough and illuminating account of the Woolfs' publishing business, the Hogarth Press, and makes a persuasive case for Woolf's "excellence as a traveller" ... Broadly appreciative and admirably concise * FINANCIAL TIMES *

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Book SynopsisThe enduring appeal of Jane Austen’s fiction is captured in this pocket-sized collection of quotations taken from her celebrated works. The novels of Jane Austen are famed for their ability to perfectly convey the nuances of social interactions in the Regency period. Perhaps what makes the books still so popular is just how recognisable the social situations and character types of two hundred years ago are today. Well-known for her humour, Jane Austen’s Universal Truths is a collection of some of Austen’s most choice and wry observations. Featuring witticisms on love and marriage, the battle of the sexes, town and country and moral duty, and dipping into all of Jane Austen’s six published novels, this collection will delight fans and is the perfect breakdown to introduce a classic author to a new audience. The universal truths are accompanied by illustrations from celebrated artist Polly Fern.

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Book SynopsisIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals. Acclaimed critic and author Rosen collects more than 40 of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beautiful volume.Trade Review"As plain-language, kid-friendly introductions to socialist politics, [the Workers’ Tales stories] are at once intriguing historical artifacts and, in a few cases, striking allegories that remain pertinent now, even on the other side of the Atlantic."---J.C. Pan, The Atlantic"A thought-provoking anthology. . . . These tales . . . are fascinating to read, both to see how they fit into the fairy tale genre and to see which messages still ring true today."---Catherine Ramsdell, PopMatters"[Workers’ Tales] entries remain powerful in their ethical simplicity—conveying with force the moral urgency of the socialist critique and its continued relevance to the problem of societies that remain systemically unequal."---Luke Savage, Jacobin"[An] important collection."---Jon Klaemint Hofgaard, Peace News"Throughout, the tales in this collection exemplify themes and ideas related to work and the class system. . . . [A] beautiful volume." * Arab News *"[A] timely yet time-honored evocation of the enduring issues of inequality, injustice, and exploitation."---Simon Poole, Journal of Folklore Research"[T]his book will make you think, and it will make you want to share it with your friends so you can discuss it."---Tahlia Merrill Kirk, Once Upon a Blog"[An] excellent and charming anthology. . . . This is a fascinating introduction to a relatively unexplored area, and allthe more welcome for it."---Paul Cowdell, Folklore"These tales provide considerable insight into the life course, relationships, job experiences, and housing conditions of many people in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British working class."---Stephen H. Norwood, European Legacy

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Book SynopsisTrade Reviewa real treasure. ... RLS at his most serious and playful. * Daily Telegraph Arts and Books section, 19 July 1997 *Table of ContentsThe Beach of Falesa; The Bottle Imp; The Isle of Voices; The Ebb-Tide; A Trio and Quartette; The Cart-Horses and the Saddle-Horse; Something In It.

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Book SynopsisPatricia Meyer Spacks guides readers to a deeper appreciation of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they experience love, romance, and heartbreak. Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition includes numerous color reproductions that vividly recreate Jane Austen’s world. This will be an especially welcome addition to the library of any Janeite.Trade ReviewIf you haven’t yet seen the Harvard University Press’s annotated Jane Austen series, prepare yourself for a major treat. This year Sense and Sensibility joins the other novels—Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, and Northanger Abbey… The books are gorgeous. Notes and commentary in the broad margins enlighten and enrich the text and offer historic context without interfering with the narrative flow. Illustrations are plentiful and include everything from an old engraving of the Theatre Royal in London’s Drury Lane to a still from the Hugh Grant–Emma Thompson film version of the novel. Jane Austen lovers worldwide will cherish these books. * Christian Science Monitor *This series of annotated, illustrated classics from Harvard Press has become a lovely annual tradition. Over the years, the press has published annotated editions of The Wind in the Willows [and] The Picture of Dorian Gray (both annotated and uncensored!), and many others. Each one has been carefully and beautifully edited. The editors know what we like, though, and they have done more Jane Austen than they have anyone else; Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition is the press’s fifth Austen book and is a worthy addition. It’s gorgeous to look at, with moire endpapers, illustrations from various editions of the book (as well as photographs of objects of the time, and paintings of contemporary well-known people), and, of course, the intelligent and abundant annotations, by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks. -- Laurie Hertzel * Star Tribune *[Spacks] is particularly astute at contextualizing 19th century thought and ideas for a contemporary audience… For people returning to the novel, Spacks’ notes are quite illuminating, mostly serious, but occasionally fun… Spacks’ introduction and annotations indicate a person who has spent a considerable amount of time with the Dashwoods and their assorted friends and foes. This handsome edition is all the richer for it. -- Subashini Navaratnam * PopMatters *This annotated edition of Sense and Sensibility is a beautiful book, printed on acid-free, cream vellum paper with generous margins and woven bindings. It is an intelligent and enlightening literary companion, and an essential addition to any serious collection of Jane Austen’s works. -- Anna Creer * Sydney Morning Herald *The illustrations, literary commentary and definitions should be useful and interesting to any student of Jane Austen’s novels. -- Kathleen Elder * Austenprose *Harvard’s series of annotated Jane Austen works continues with this superb edition of Sense and Sensibility. What a boon to the student of Austen… Sense and Sensibility is my favorite Austen novel: this edition increased my enjoyment and understanding many times over. -- Joceline Bury * Jane Austen’s Regency World *With wit and wonderful attention to subtleties, and to often moving effect, Spacks guides the reader to a wider appreciation of this early Austen novel. -- Deidre Lynch, University of Toronto

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Book SynopsisThe Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) are two classic American adventure novels by Jack London depicting the evolution of two dogs in the wild, now presented together in this elegantly designed jacketed hardcover edition.

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Book Synopsis`Isabel Gilbert was not a woman of the world. She had read novels while other people perused the Sunday papers...she believed in a phantasmal world created out of the pages of poets and romancers.'' The Doctor''s Wife is Mary Elizabeth Braddon''s rewriting of Flaubert''s Madame Bovary in which she explores her heroine''s sense of entrapment and alienation in middle-class provincial life married to a good natured but bovine husband who seems incapable of understanding his wife''s imaginative life and feelings. A woman with a secret, adultery, death and the spectacle of female recrimination and suffering are the elements which combine to make The Doctor''s Wife a classic women''s sensation novel. Yet, The Doctor''s Wife is also a self-consciously literary novel, in which Braddon attempts to transcend the sensation genre. This is the only edition of a fascinating and engrossing work, and reproduces uncut the first three-volume edition of 1864. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford

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Book SynopsisYork Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.Table of Contents Part 1: Introduction Part 2: The text Part 3: Critical approachs Part 4: Critical history Part 5: Background Further Reading Literacy Terms

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Book SynopsisPliny's letters provide a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. They document politics, social life, religion, the educational system, the treatment of slaves and include a vivid description of the eruption of Vesuvius. This is a lively and sympathetic new translation.

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Book SynopsisOver more than four decades J.R.R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, published some twenty-four volumes of his father’s work, much more than his father had succeeded in publishing during his own lifetime. Standing on the mountain of his son’s colossal publishing effort and extraordinary scholarship, readers today are therefore able to survey and understand the vastness of the landscape of Tolkien’s legendarium. This collection of essays by world-renowned scholars, together with family reminiscences, sheds new light on J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, his son Christopher’s unique gifts in communicating and interpreting that work and the debt owed to Christopher by the many Tolkien scholars who were privileged to work with him. What was Tolkien’s intended ending for 'The Lord of the Rings'? Did it leave echoes in the stripped-down version that was actually published? What was the audience’s response to the first ever adaptation of 'The Lord of the Rings' – a radio dramatization that has now been deleted forever from the BBC’s archives? What was the significance of the extraordinary array of doorways which confronted the hobbits as they journeyed through Middle-earth? The book is illustrated with colour reproductions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s manuscripts, maps, drawings and letters and, with the kind permission of his estate, photographs of Christopher Tolkien and extracts from his works, some of which have never been seen before, making this volume essential reading for Tolkien scholars, readers and fans.Table of ContentsCONTENTS 1 Catherine McIlwaine Introduction Timeline 2 Maxime H. Pascal Eulogy delivered at Christopher Tolkien’s funeral 3 Priscilla Tolkien A Personal Memory 4 Vincent Ferré The Son Behind the Father: Christopher Tolkien as a Writer 5 Verlyn Flieger Listening to the Music 6 John Garth The Chronology of Creation: How J.R.R. Tolkien Misremembered the Beginnings of his Mythology 7 Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull ‘I Wisely Started with a Map’: J.R.R. Tolkien as Cartographer 8 Carl F. Hostetter Editing the Tolkienian Manuscript 9 Stuart D. Lee A Milestone in BBC History? The 1955-56 Radio Dramatization of The Lord of the Rings 10 Tom Shippey King Sheave and The Lost Road 11 Brian Sibley Down from the door where it began… Portal images in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Bibliography for Christopher Tolkien Notes About the Contributors Further Reading Picture Credits Index

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Book SynopsisAnd now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact''.The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man''s rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, at last leaving the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution.Apart from its violence and mystery, the tale calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing truth. Layer upon layer of elaborate hoaxes include its author''s own role of posing as ghost-writer of the narrative; Pym - his only novel - has become the key text for our understanding of Poe.This edition offers eight short tales which are linked to Pym by their treatment of persistent themes - fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials - or by their ironic commentary on Trade Review'a fine introduction to a fascinating writer' The Observer

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Book SynopsisThe text is unabridged, with original spelling and extensive, easy-to-use marginal glosses and footnotes.

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Book SynopsisCrime fiction has been one of the most popular genres since the 19th century, but has roots in works as varied as Sophocles, Herodotus, and Shakespeare. In this Very Short Introduction Richard Bradford explores the history of the genre, by considering the various definitions of ''crime fiction'' and looking at how it has developed over time. Discussing the popularity of crime fiction worldwide and its various styles; the role that gender plays within the genre; spy fiction, and legal dramas and thrillers; he explores how the crime novel was shaped by the work of British and American authors in the 18th and 19th centuries. Highlighting the works of notorious authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler -- to name but a few -- he considers the role of the crime novel in modern popular culture and asks whether we can, and whether we should, consider crime fiction serious ''literature''. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade Reviewthe "fine dining" of literature * Ruth Ginarlis, Newbooks Magazine *This is a fine introduction to a genre that embraces humanity in its flaws and glories, and it should find its way onto the bookshelves of anyone who likes crime fiction, or fiction in general. * Ben Macnair, Nudge.com *... this tidy little read-in-an-evening item will explain and enhance your affection for murder, open your eyes to new authors and have you reaching for the bookshelves for another fix, assured that you're right in the read afterall. * Sunday Sport, Jon Wise *Table of Contents1. Origins ; 2. The two ages: Golden and Hard Boiled ; 3. Transitions ; 4. International crime fiction ; 5. Gender ; 6. Cousins of crime: spy ficiton, the thriller, and legal drama ; 7. Epilogue: Can crime fiction be taken seriously? ; Further reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisNo other edition offers extensive textual apparatus such as explanatory notes, plot summaries, particularly vital as stories are complex and interwoven. The Sultan Schahriar''s misguided resolution to shelter himself from the possible infidelities on his wives leads to an outbreak of barbarity in his kingdoms and a reign of terror in his court, stopped only by the resourceful Scheherazade. The tales with which Scheherazade nightly postpones the muderous intent of the sultan have entered our language and our lives like no other collection of narratives before or since. Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba: all make their spectacular entrance on to the stage of English literary history in the Arabian Nights Entertainments (1704-17). The stories contained in this `store house of ingenious fiction'' initiate a pattern of literary reference and influence which today remains as powerful and intense as it was throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This edition reproduces in its entirety the earliest English translation of the French orientalist Antoine Galland''s Mille et une Nuits. This remained for over a century the only English translation of the story cycle, influencing an incalculable number of writers, and no other edition offers the complete text supplemented by full textual apparatus. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Book SynopsisFour novellas by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, that once again show her to be unequalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition.The title story, The Grandmothers', is an astonishing tour de force, a shockingly intimate portrait of an unconventional extended family and the lengths to which they will go to find happiness and love. Written with a keen cinematic eye, the story is a ruthless dissection of the veneer of middle-class morality and convention.Victoria and the Staveneys', takes us through 20 years of the life of a young underprivileged black girl in London. A chance meeting introduces her to the Staveneys a liberal white middle-class family and, seduced, she falls pregnant by one of the sons. As her daughter grows up, Victoria feels her parental control diminishing as the attractions of the Staveneys' world exert themselves. An honest and often uncomfortable look at race relations in London over the past few decades, Lessing reaffTrade Review'Lessing's prose is as vigorous in these stories as it has ever been. She has an extraordinary feel not only for landscape but also for the human creature within it.' The Times 'In these four tales Lessing shows her adaptability, and her capacity to unify the most far-flung territories of human experience. Like all great writers, she brings a multitudinous sensibility to bear on individual people, on single rooms, on particular moments – and she makes them live.' Daily Telegraph ‘Doris Lessing has changed the way we think about the world.’ Blake Morrison ‘Thank goodness for Doris Lessing. While the rest of us flounder about noisily in the muddy waters of life, she never fails to expose with startling clarity the essential folly of our dreams and good intentions.’ Kate Chisholm, Evening Standard ‘She’s up there in the pantheon with Balzac and George Eliot. We’re lucky she’s still writing.’ Lisa Appignanesi, Independent ‘She has an extraordinary feeling for the peculiar vulnerabilities of the young and the elderly. And her portraits of human relationships are of quite staggering beauty.’ Ruth Scurr, The Times

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Book SynopsisIn this acrobatic and virtuosic collection, Paul Auster traces the compulsion to make literature. In a selection of interviews, as well as in the essay ''The Red Notebook'' itself, Auster reflects upon his own work, on the need to break down the boundary between living and writing, and on the use of certain genre conventions to penetrate matters of memory and identity. The Red Notebook both illuminates and undermines our accepted notions about literature, and guides us towards a finer understanding of the dangerously high stakes involved in writing. It also includes Paul Auster''s impassioned essay ''A Prayer for Salman Rushdie'', as well as a set of striking and bittersweet reminiscences collected under the apposite title, ''Why Write?''Trade Review'Bears testimony to Auster's sense of the metaphysical elegance of life and art.' Literary Review

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Book SynopsisP. D. James''s extraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old age.In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th and 78th birthdays, and looks back on her earlier life.With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, and then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords.Along the way, this diary and personal memoir deals with

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Book SynopsisBandits in Print examines the world of print in early modern China, focusing on the classic novel The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). Depending on which edition a reader happened upon, The Water Margin could offer vastly different experiences, a characteristic of the early modern Chinese novel genre and the shifting print culture of the era.Scott W. Gregory argues that the traditional novel is best understood as a phenomenon of print. He traces the ways in which this particularly influential novel was adapted and altered in the early modern era as it crossed the boundaries of elite and popular, private and commercial, and civil and martial. Moving away from ultimately unanswerable questions about authorship and urtext, Gregory turns instead to the editor-publishers who shaped the novel by crafting their own print editions. By examining the novel in its various incarnations, Bandits in Print shows that print is not only a stabilizi

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Book Synopsis''I have heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his fidelity...incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores of Sulaco.''One of the greatest political novels in any language, Nostromo enacts the establishment of modern capitalism in a remote South American province locked between the Andes and the Pacific. In the harbourtown of Sulaco, a vivid cast of characters is caught up in a civil war to decide whether its fabulously wealthy silver mine, funded by American money but owned by a third-generation English immigrant, can be preserved from the hands of venal politicians. Greed and corruption seep into the lives of everyone, and Nostromo, the principled Capataz, is tested to the limit.Conrad''s evocation of the great Latin-American landscapes, the ferocity of its politics, and individuals swept up in imperial ambitions has never been bettered. This edition offers new insights into Conrad''s masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years O

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Book Synopsis''Restlessly curious, insightful, and quirky, David Damrosch is the perfect guide to a round-the-world adventure in reading'' Stephen GreenblattA transporting and illuminating voyage around the globe, told through eighty classic and modern books''It is always a pleasure to talk about books with David Damrosch, who has read all of them, and he is so eloquent and understanding about them all'' Orhan PamukInspired by Jules Verne''s hero Phileas Fogg, David Damrosch, chair of Harvard''s Department of Comparative Literature and founder of Harvard''s Institute for World Literature, set out to counter a pandemic''s restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books from around the globe. Following a literary itinerary from London to Venice, Tehran and points beyond, and via authors from Woolf and Dante to Nobel prizewinners Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mo Yan and Olga Tokarczuk, he explores how these works have shaped our idea of the world, and the ways the world bleeds into literature.To chart the expansive landscape of world literature today, Damrosch explores how writers live in two very different worlds: the world of their personal experience, and the world of books that have enabled great writers to give shape and meaning to their lives. In his literary cartography, Damrosch includes compelling contemporary works as well as perennial classics, hard-bitten crime fiction as well as haunting works of fantasy, and the formative tales that introduce us as children to the world we''re entering. Taken together, these eighty titles offer us fresh perspective on perennial problems, from the social consequences of epidemics to the rising inequality that Thomas More designed Utopia to combat and the patriarchal structures within and against which many of these books'' heroines have to struggle, from the work of Murasaki Shikibu a millennium ago to that of Margaret Atwood today.Around the World in 80 Books is a global invitation to look beyond ourselves and our surroundings, and to see our world and its literature in new ways.Trade ReviewA hymn to the unifying power of literature... Around the World in 80 Books takes us on a tour of the author's global head, and while expanding our knowledge it enlarges our capacity for fellow-feeling -- Peter Conrad * Observer *It is always a pleasure to talk about books with David Damrosch, who has read all of them, and he is so eloquent and understanding about them all -- Orhan PamukRestlessly curious, insightful, and quirky, David Damrosch is the perfect guide to a round-the-world adventure in reading. With such a companion, you never know where you will go next, but you can be confident that the encounter will be memorable. Count me in! -- Stephen Greenblatt, author of TYRANT and THE SWERVEAn insightful journey into the books that have for so long captivated us. Profound, boundless and diverse -- Jokha Alharthi, author of Celestial BodiesPleasurable and full of insights, Around the World in 80 Books is such a joyful journey through the places, times and people who have made our world literature. Every time I finished a chapter I felt an urge to discover or re-read the books whose stories Damrosch is telling so vividly - but that meant putting down his own book and I wasn't able do that... -- Dror Mishani, author of The Missing File and ThreeA vast, fascinating latticework of books within books... This rewarding literary Baedeker will inspire readers to discover new places * Kirkus *Damrosch's richly conceived survey offers readers a colorful map for an illuminating, enlivening tour of their own libraries. Travel fans and literature lovers alike will find something to savor * Publisher's Weekly *

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Book SynopsisRichard Holmes's great work of biographical exploration, published alongside its sister volume Sidetracks'.In 1985, Richard Holmes published a small book of essays called Footsteps and the writing of biography was changed forever. A daring mix of travel, biographical sleuthing and personal memoir, it broke all the conventions of the genre and remains ons of the most intoxicating, magical works of modern literary exploration ever published.Sleeping rough, he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson''s famous journey through the Cevennes. Caught up in the Parisian riots of the 1960s, he dives back in time to the terrors of Wordsworth and of Mary Wollstonecraft marooned in Revolutionary Paris and then into the strange tortured worlds of Gérard de Nerval. Wandering through Italy, he stalks Shelley and his band of Romantic idealists to Casa Magni on the Gulf of Spezia.Trade ReviewThis exhilarating book, part biography, part autobiography, shows the biographer as sleuth and huntsman, tracking his subjects through space and time.' HILARY SPURLING, Observer 'Nothing is simple in this intricate, complicated and fascinating book, which is like a set of Russian dolls, biography containing travel-writing containing autobiography containing and so on… Holmes is indeed a biographer and a romantic in every sense.' RICHARD BOSTON, Guardian

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Book SynopsisUpon publication, "Don't Panic" quickly established itself as the definitive companion to "Adams" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". This edition comes up-to-date, covering the movie, "And Another Thing" by Eoin Colfer and the build up to the 30th anniversary of the first novel. Acclaimed author Neil Gaiman celebrates the life and work of Douglas Adams who, in a field in Innsbruck in 1971, had an idea that became "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The radio series that started it all, the five - soon to be six - book 'trilogy', the TV series, almost-film and actual film, and everything in between.Trade Review"It's all devastatingly true - except the bits that are lies" - Douglas Adams * "Hilarious fun... a source of much delightful trivia" - Publisher's Weekly"

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Book SynopsisWilliam Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965Trade ReviewThe modern writer who has influenced me most -- George OrwellA brilliant entertainer * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay""One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of the Year""One of VULTURE'S 49 Books We Can't Wait to Read""A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""Wonderful. . . . Through language, we come to know ourselves: Lahiri’s work shows how it is always possible to expand that knowledge."---Erica Wagner, Harper’s Bazaar UK"[Lahiri’s] observations are as plentiful as they are enlightening."---Juliana Ukiomogbe, Elle"[In this book] a vision emerges of translation as a site where the physical and the textual, the extraordinary and the ordinary, intersect."---Polly Barton, Times Literary Supplement"[Lahiri] is excellent. . . . Translating Myself and Others is a reminder, no matter your relationship to translation, of how alive language itself can be. In her essays as in her fiction, Lahiri is a writer of great, quiet elegance; her sentences seem simple even when they're complex. Their beauty and clarity alone would be enough to wake readers up."---Lily Meyer, NPR"[Translating Myself and Others] is about the consequences of the apparently simple act of choosing one’s own words. . . . [The] book also contains a hope for the liberating power of language."---Benjamin Moser, New York Times"[A] series of passionate [and] thoughtful essays."---Frank Wynne, The Spectator"[Translating Myself and Others] movingly describes [Lahiri’s] history with translation from her experiences as an immigrant child . . . to her early literary-translation efforts and her eventual decision to move to Rome and learn Italian." * Vulture *"Poetic." * New York Magazine *"A wry collection."---Adam Rathe, Town & Country"[Lahiri’s] voice is a strong one in the current campaign to give translators more recognition. Her candidness about the hardships of translation and her enthusiasm for its rewards make you want to hear more from these fascinating figures, who spend so much time in others’ voices but have not lost the use of their own."---Camilla Bell-Davies, Financial Times"Digestible and approachable. . . . The thought-provoking collection makes for a sharp and luminous exploration of Lahiri’s relationship to language, translation, and literature and made me want to finally tackle my goal of learning a second language."---Jordan Snowden, Apartment Therapy"[A] memoir of the experience [of learning Italian], recounted with passion and insight."---Gregory Cowles, New York Times"Lahiri explores her relationship with literature, translation, and the English and Italian languages in this exhilarating collection. . . . Lucid and provocative, this is full of rewarding surprises." * Publishers Weekly, starred review *"A scrupulously honest and consistently thoughtful love letter to ‘the most intense form of reading…there is.'" * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *"The collection is singular for Lahiri’s ability to integrate the personal and the theoretical, drawing her examples from literature and from life. . . . Lahiri writes so beautifully that this collection will have broad appeal for anyone interested in literary essays."---David Azzolina, Library Journal"[An] absorbing new collection of essays. . . . Translating Myself and Others is a subtle yet ultimately engrossing work, somewhat academic at times, yet infused with the kind of understated, often startling capacity for observation that has always been Lahiri’s literary superpower." * Bookpage *"Translating Myself and Others is a thought-provoking collection of essays about the art of modern translation." * Foreword Reviews *"Anyone interested in the art of translation will be engrossed by Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri."---Martin Chilton, The Independent"Lahiri’s ruminations on translation are relatable and luminous. . . . This book embraces simplicity-in-complexity, making it appropriate for both the Lahiri devotee and the uninitiate."---Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Christian Century"[Lahiri] explores [translation] with her customary rigor and candidness in this new essay collection, featuring several pieces originally written in Italian and translated into English by Lahiri for the first time, an act of metamorphosis as dazzling to her as it is to the reader." * Chicago Review of Books *"Throughout these essays, it’s as if Lahiri, feeling misunderstood, were hoping to build a literary home for herself that is ample enough to accommodate her lives as author, translator, academic, and language learner. A home in which she can write, on her own terms, in whatever language she wants, and think, on her own terms, about whatever subject she wants."---Julia Sanches, Astra"The essays . . . are master classes in translation theory and in critical writing about translation. . . . Fascinating and insightful writing."---Lauren Elkin, American Scholar"These essays . . . demonstrate the depths of [Lahiri’s] love for her adopted language. . . . Readers will have a newfound appreciation of the translator's ability to illuminate."---Michael Margas, Shelf Awareness starred review"In this collection of essays, Lahiri gives insights into her processes, as well as penetrating and perceptive thoughts on the act of translating that will be especially illuminating for readers who enjoy translated works."---Joe Rubbo, Readings"This cool, detached book bristles with life and love."---John Self, Observer New Review"There is great joy and intrigue to be found in Lahiri’s ruminations on self-translation. . . . [Translating Myself and Others] is a love letter to not only translation, but to literary criticism as a whole.”—Malavika Praseed, Chicago Review of Books"---Malavika Praseed, Chicago Review of Books"[A] portrait of intelligent, sensitive and deeply humane curiosity . . . inspiring."---James Kidd, South China Morning Post"[T]his latest set of essays proves [Lahiri’s] skill lies in the craft of experimenting with what language can do, both in Italian and English, and both as a writer and as a translator."---Anandi Mishra, Frieze"Translating Myself and Others feels at once ambitious and safe, playful and formulaic, variegated and quasi-myopic."---Carolina Iribaren, Hopscotch Translation"[In Translating Myself and Others] Lahiri achieves the task of portraying her profound love for linguistics and the ways languages give new life to one another in translation. . . . Lahiri’s writing is impeccably strong."---Amanda Janks, Zyzzyva"Readers . . . will find themselves immersed in a voyage of discovery not just of what makes Lahiri the writer and the translator tick, but of how these two facets or ‘containers’ inform, extend, challenge and ultimately re-create her, while at the same time providing much food for thought for the reader."---Lilit Žekulin Thwaites, Sydney Morning Herald"These deeply thoughtful meditations . . . illuminate the art of literary alchemy." * Saga Magazine *"Eloquent. . . . [Lahiri] explores what it means to be a translator, how translating enhances her identity as a writer and vice versa, and how these multiple identities are mutually enriching"---Hayley Armstrong, In Touch"A lyrical meditation on translation and a manifesto establishing translation as an artistic pursuit as creative and authentic as writing in the original language."---Lopamudra Basu, World Literature Today"Anyone interested in the challenges of translating literary works from one language to another will find this book fascinating. . . . It’s certainly a richly rewarding [read]."---Terry Freedman, Teach Secondary"A deep meditation on the art of translation. . . . Lahiri offers a straightforward but profound and lyrical theory of translation."---Lucky Issar, Economic & Political Weekly"A lucid and engaging reflection not only on what it means to translate a text and to properly acknowledge that work, but also what translation signifies beyond the act of individual words being noted down in another language."---Franklin Nelson, Wasafiri Magazine"Rich, deep and, above all, beautifully written, Translating Myself and Others exemplifies the power of words, language, art, ‘‘to explore the phenomenon and the consequences of change itself’’."---Cushla McKinney, Otago Daily News

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Book SynopsisFOREWORD BY ALI SMITHWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADEWho better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf?In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in English: T. S. Eliot, Henry James and E. M. Forster among them. But one of the paper's defining voices was Virginia Woolf, who produced a string of superb essays between the two World Wars.The weirdness of Elizabethan plays, the pleasure of revisiting favourite novels, the supreme examples of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Henry James, Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad: all are here, in anonymously published pieces, in which may be glimpsed the thinking behind Woolf's works of fiction and the enquiring, feminist spirit of A Room of One's Own.Here is Woolf the critical essayist, offering, at one moment, a playful hypothesis and, at another, a judgement laid down with the authority of a twentieth-century Dr Johnson. Here is Woolf working out precisely what's great about Hardy, and how Elizabeth Barrett Browning made books a substitute for living because she was forbidden to scamper on the grass. Above all, here is Virginia Woolf the reader, whose enthusiasm for great literature remains palpable and inspirational today.

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Book SynopsisAs an internationally bestselling phenomenon and queen of the Regency Romance, Georgette Heyer is one of the most beloved historical novelists of our time. She''s written more than fifty novels - romances, detective stories and contemporary works of fiction - yet her private life was practically inaccessible to any but her closest friends and relatives. With this classic biography we catch a glimpse into Georgette Heyer''s world and that of her most memorable characters. With access to private papers and archives, Jane Aiken Hodge reveals a formidable, energetic woman, with an impeccable sense of style and, beyond everything, a love for all things Regency. Lavishly illustrated from Georgette Heyer''s own research files, her family archives and other Regency sources, complete with extracts from her correspondence and references to her work, The Private World is a delight and a must-read for every Georgette Heyer fan.Trade ReviewOne of the most beautiful books I know * Washington Post Book World *A fascinating biography of Georgette Heyer, one that deserves reading just as much as Heyer'snovels * Courier Mail *

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Book Synopsis''Wodehouse said letters make a wonderful oblique form for an autobiography, and Sophie Ratcliffe''s expertly edited collection amply proves the point.''SpectatorOne of the funniest and most admired writers of the twentieth century, P. G. Wodehouse always shied away from the idea of a biography. A quiet, retiring man, he expressed himself through the written word. His letters - collected here - provide an illuminating biographical accompaniment to legendary comic creations such as Jeeves, Wooster, Psmith and the Empress of Blandings. This is a book every lover of Wodehouse will want to possess.''The letters, gossipy in the kindliest, amused/bemused manner, bear true witness to the wide-ranging influences on Wodehouse''s'' best-known novels and best-loved characters.''The TimesTrade ReviewWodehouse said letters make "a wonderful oblique form for an autobiography," and Sophie Ratcliffe's expertly edited collection amply proves the point. * Spectator *Anybody requiring evidence of how much work PG Wodehouse put into his comic prose should read his letters. In her introduction to this definitive compendium of Wodehouse's correspondence, Sophie Ratcliffe warns that [the letters] display only on occasions the extraordinary stylistic elan that one finds in fiction. Indeed they do, although when the extraordinary elan bubbles briefly to the surface, it is worth waiting for. But Wodehouse was a dedicated craftsman. He wanted his published words to make people laugh, and he devoted hour after hour to making them fit that purpose. One suspects his personal epistles were often a happy relief from that discipline. * Scotland on Sunday *The great catastrophe of his life was of course, his broadcasting from Berlin in 1941, a slur on his reputation that never quite went goes away however often it is expunged. The whole saga is unravelled again here in Sophie Ratcliffe's excellent linking narrative. * Daily Mail *Filtered by some excellent editing, [these letters] are full of interest * Mail on Sunday *Sophie Ratcliffe has done an exemplary job in editing these letters * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisEdgar Allan Poe's extraordinary Gothic tales are classics of horror fiction, and created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detective fiction. This selection places the most popular against travel narrative, essays, and political satires.Trade ReviewI picked up The Pit and The Pendulum and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, a collection which just got a convenient small hardcover reprint from Oxford University Press. * John DeNardo, Kirkus Reviews *With scholarly annotations and bibliography, an informative introduction, and useful chronology, Oxford University Press has produced a highly attractive volume suitable for all species of reader. * Chris Hill, The Fortean Times *Bound in glorious purple, this new edition of Edgar Allan Poe's tales from Oxford World's Classics reprints some neglected Poe tales among the usual classics. * Oliver Tearle, Interesting Literature *This is a fine introduction to not only the man himself but also the genre of Gothic fiction... Check it out if you have not already. * Ian Macleod, Frightfest *Table of ContentsIntroductionMS Found in a BottleBerenicëMorellaLigeiaThe Man That Was Used UpThe Fall of the House of UsherWilliam WilsonThe Man of the CrowdThe Murders in the Rue MorgueEleonoraThe Masque of the Red DeathThe Pit and the PendulumThe Mystery of Marie RogêtThe Tell-Tale HeartThe Gold-BugThe Black CatA Tale of the Ragged MountainsThe Purloined LetterThe Systems of Doctor Tarr and Professor FetherThe Imp of the PerverseThe Cask of AmontilladoThe Domain of ArnheimHop-FrogVon Kempelen and his DiscoveryExplanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisWritten by a leading academic and broadcaster and drawing on interviews with readers, writers, reading groups, bookshop owners, librarians, and figures from literary publishing, reviewing, and festivals, this accessible volume offers an overview of the contemporary scene of women's novel-reading.Trade ReviewSelected as a book to watch out for in 2020 by The Sunday TimesA fascinating study of why the novel became central for women... * The Sunday Times, Best books of the year 2020 so far *... an illuminating and very readable study of the many reasons why women are such passionate readers of fiction and how they provide the glue for an informed and literate society. * PD Smith, The Guardian *Fascinating ... I just hope that women continue to find the pleasure in reading that is gloriously displayed in this book... * Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times *... an ambitious undertaking ... [Helen Taylor] has asked more than 500 female readers and writers about their reading habits. Anecdotes from famous authors and figures including Hilary Mantel and Judy Finnigan, as co-founder of the Richard and Judy Book Club, are interwoven with observations from readers. Taylor does this without ego, letting the words stand alone and turning what could easily be a dry, worthy report into more of an impassioned conversation... if youre thinking about why you choose the books you do, this is a thought-provoking place to start. * Susannah Butler, Evening Standard, Book of the Week *If publishing wants to get closer to its readers, it will do well to listen to Helen Taylor. In her new book [...] Helen Taylor [...] offers a timely and lively exploration of why women keep the book trade ticking over. * Julie Vuong, Book Brunch *The great joy of Taylor's book is the light it shines on communities of women readers, something that helped me recognise my own ... Reading Taylor's book has also made me join a book club. I did not like the January book; I did enjoy drinking gin while saying why. I would like to be in a book club with Taylor's correspondents, having so much enjoyed the warmth, intelligence, and insight of their conversations with her throughout the book... * Sophie Duncan, Literary Review *Though long overdue this satisfying offering comes at a time when women are working harder than ever to secure their rightful place in the literary canon. Recommended enthusiasts of lit crit, feminist studies, and publishing. * Erica Swensen, Library Journal *An inherently fascinating, thoughtful and thought-provoking work of insightful and seminal scholarship ... an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Studies collections... * Mary Cowper, The Midwest Book Review *... there is a wealth of fantastic contributions which Helen has pulled together into a brilliant analysis of women and reading. I'm nodding in agreement with every sentence. * DoveyGreyReader *Ms. Taylor was for many years professor of English Literature at Exeter University. This is not her first book but it is her best. * peterwatsonauthor.com, Universities Press Review *Taylor captures the complex delights of reading, while taking a clear-eyed look at the politics of how books are marketed, shared and enjoyed. Astute, engaging, inspiring, Why Women Read Fiction will speak volumes to anyone who's ever experienced, at first hand, the power of novels and short stories to enrich and transform lives. * Sarah Waters *This spirited cultural history and savvy analysis as to why, how and what women read is - well, a really good story! * Sarah Dunant *In her generous and accessible book, Helen Taylor shows how the enterprise of reading draws us into an unseen collective, where the resources of the imagination are pooled; but she is not afraid to show the creative power of division and dissent. Though authoritative and well-researched, Why Women Read Fiction is far more than a study meant for academics and publishers - it is lively and absorbing, like a conversation with other women you wish you knew. * Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies *Table of ContentsPreface: 'A Friend, a Bible, a Perfume' Part One: How, Where, and Why Women Read Fiction Introduction 1: 'Cheap Sweet Vacations': Reading as a Woman Rosie Jackson: 'What Their Books Yield or, Why I am Not Buying a Kindle' Part Two: What Women Read 2: Reading as a Girl U A Fanthorpe: The Poet on her childhood reading 3: Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, the Novels Women Love Best 4: Romance and Erotica: Fiction by Women for Women 5: Women, Crime, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy dovegreyreader: The Literary Blogger Part Three: Writers and Readers 6: Women Writers on their Reading and Readers 7: Book Clubs in Women's Life Stories 8: Festivals, Literary Tourism, and Pilgrimage Fiction in Lives, Lives in Fiction 9: The Stories of Our Lives Appendix: Questionnaire about women's fiction reading

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Book SynopsisBeloved by children and adults worldwide, the writings of C.S. Lewis have a broad and enduring appeal. Although he is best known for the iconic Chronicles of Narnia series, C. S. Lewis was actually a man of many literary parts. Already well-known as a scholar in the thirties, he became a famous broadcaster during World War Two and wrote in many genres, including satire (The Screwtape Letters), science fiction ( Perelandra), a novel (Till We Have Faces), and many other books on Christian belief, such as Mere Christianity and Miracles. His few sermons remain touchstones of their type. In addition to these, Lewis wrote hundreds of poems and articles on social and cultural issues, many books and articles in his field of literary criticism and history, and thousands of letters. At Oxford University he became a charismatic lecturer and conversationalist. Taken together his writings have engaged and influenced, often very deeply, millions of readers. Now Lewis societies, television documentaries, movies, radio plays, and theatrical treatments of his work and life have become common, and he is frequently quoted by journalists, critics, and public thinkers. This Very Short Introduciton delves into the vast corpus of C. S. Lewis'' work, discussing its core themes and lasting appeal. As James Como shows, C. S. Lewis'' life is just as interesting as his work. A complex man, he came to his knowledge, beliefs, and wisdom only after much tortuous soul-searching and many painful events. Moving chronologically through Lewis'' life, Como provides throughout a picture of the whole man, his work, and his enduring legacy.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewJames Como, founder of the New York CS Lewis society and a world authority on Lewis, has produced a brilliant, short introduction ... that manages to say a great deal in very few words. * Church of England Newspaper *This is the single finest biographical survey yet written on C. S. Lewis ... Dr. Como's Very Short Introduction employs the best sources possible, fully understanding the evolution of Lewis's own thought and writings while also incorporating the finest reminiscences of the man. * Bradley J Birzer, The Imaginative Conservative *Como's C.S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction is a useful text to recommend to new scholars and fans of Lewis and his work and is a refreshing reminder of how the various Lewises make up the one man. * Zachary Rhone, Mythlore Journal *Como on Lewis is like Lewis on Christianity: He says so much in so few words. It is succinctness raised to an art form. Thoroughly recommended. * Joseph Pearce, Author, Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia *Table of ContentsPreface 1: Lewis along the way 2: Roots 3: Lewis ascendant 4: Fame 5: Darkness and light 6: A new day 7: End game 8: The weight of glory A readers' list of C. S. Lewis's works by type Books of particular importance to C. S. Lewis A selected secondary bibliography Further reading

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Book Synopsis''He appears to be persecutor and I the persecuted: is not this difference the mere creature of the imagination?''Caleb is a guileless young servant who enters the employment of Ferdinando Falkland, a cosmopolitan and benevolent country gentleman. Falkland is subject to fits of unexplained melancholy, and Caleb becomes convinced that he harbours a dark secret. His discovery of the truth leads to false accusations against him, and a vengeful pursuit as suspenseful as any thriller.The novel is also a powerful political allegory, inspired by the events of the decade following the French Revolution. This new edition reproduces the original novel of 1794, which captures the raw indignation and sense of injustice felt by victims of British law. It includes the startlingly different manuscript ending, and selected variants in the second and third editions reflecting changes in Godwin''s political and philosophical thinking. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewA breathtaking plot with twists and turns as the protagonist gets into trouble because of his curiosity * Daily Express, Cathy Tyson *

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Book SynopsisJohn Buchan wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps while he was seriously ill at the beginning of the First World War. In it he introduces his most famous hero, Richard Hannay, who, despite claiming to be an `ordinary fellow'', is caught up in the dramatic race against a plot to devastate the British war effort. Hannay is hunted across the Scottish moors by police and spy-ring alike, and must outwit his intelligent and pitiless enemy in the corridors of Whitehall and, finally, at the site of the mysterious thirty-nine steps.The best-known of Buchan''s thrillers, The Thirty-Nine Steps has been continuously in print since first publication and has been filmed three times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. In this, the only critical edition, Christopher Harvie''s introduction interweaves the writing of the tale with the equally fascinating story of how John Buchan, publisher and lawyer, came in from the cold and, via The Thirty-Nine Steps, ended the war as spy-master and propaganda chief. AB

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Book Synopsis''Superlative... definitive and genuinely gripping'' SUNDAY TIMES''Utterly engrossing'' EVENING STANDARD''Compulsively readable... Beautifully written... Definitive'' OBSERVER Appointed by Philip Roth and granted complete access and independence, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth''s personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the post-war literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain. Bailey examines Roth''s rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love lifeTrade ReviewSuperlative... Bailey's account is definitive and genuinely gripping to boot... He leads us lucidly through a dense palimpsest of overlapping drafts, fictional identities, literary feuds and women. -- Claire Lowdon * Sunday Times *Compulsively readable... Beautifully written... It is hard to imagine a book that will come up with a more definitive series of answers than this one. -- Tim Adams * Observer *[A] monumental and engrossing book... Bailey brings new information and a fresh perspective... No other biographer will have known Roth so well. -- Elaine Showalter * Times Literary Supplement *Bailey's utterly engrossing biography ... shows Roth led a life just as strange and intense as his fictionalised alter egos. -- Tomiwa Owolade * Evening Standard *It's a miracle that he has published so lucid a book just three years after Roth's death - and one so packed with good anecdotes and jokes... It's an achievement for Bailey to have gained as much distance as he has. -- Blake Morrison * Guardian *Philip Roth, for all his flaws, for all that I know his legacy will continue to be judged in judgmental times and found wanting, deserves this riveting, serious and deeply intelligent biography. -- David Baddiel * Spectator *The 19th-century novel lives on. Its name today is Biography; its nature is that of Dostoyevskian magnitude. And Blake Bailey's comprehensive life of Philip Roth - to tell it outright - is a narrative masterwork.' -- Cynthia Ozick * New York Times Book Review *Unassailable as to fact... clear-eyed... quickly moving... Philip Roth seems as brightly peopled as a Victorian novel. ... What [Bailey] does superbly... is chart Roth's sexual and emotional life, and map its effects on his work. -- Michael Gorra * New York Review of Books *[A] terrific new biography... Bailey handles...difficult passages with real skill. -- Benjamin Markovits * Daily Telegraph *A colourful, confident and uncompromising biographical triumph. -- Alexander C Kafka * Independent *

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Book Synopsis''What had happened to the lost manuscripts, what train of chances took Rolfe to his death in Venice? The Quest continued''One summer afternoon A.J.A. Symons is handed a peculiar, eccentric novel that he cannot forget and, captivated by this unknown masterpiece, determines to learn everything he can about its mysterious author. The object of his search is Frederick Rolfe, self-titled Baron Corvo - artist, rejected candidate for priesthood and author of serially autobiographical fictions - and its story is told in this ''experiment in biography'': a beguiling portrait of an insoluble tangle of talents, frustrated ambitions and self-destruction.Trade ReviewPart detective story, part spiritual journey, and part meditation on biography. Steeped in arcane learning, queer encounters, and fanciful symbolist prose, it is a very peculiar operation indeed, leaving he reader unconvinced that there was ever such a real person as Frederick Rolfe - or, possibly, his biographer -- Hermione LeeA slender book, an odd book, a completely original book ... a masterpiece * Wall Street Journal *One of the genre's most notable - if also quirkiest - triumphs * New Criterion *Extraordinary ... a new template for twentieth-century biography * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisClaire Tomalin has been literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times. She has written seven highly acclaimed literary biographies including Samuel Pepys, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year award, and the international bestseller Charles Dickens. She is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.

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Book Synopsis''Adds enormously to our understanding of the man'' Evening StandardGeorge Orwell was one of the greatest writers England produced in the last century. He left an enduring mark on our language and culture, with concepts such as ''Big Brother'' and ''Room 101.'' His reputation rests not only on his political shrewdness and his sharp satires (Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four) but also on his marvellously clear style and superb essays, which rank with the best ever written. Gordon Bowker''s new biography includes fascinating new material which brings Orwell''slife into unfamiliar focus. He writes revealingly about Orwell''s family background; the lasting influence of Eton on his work and character; his superstitious streak and youthful flirtation with black magic; and his chaotic and reckless sex life, which included at least one homoerotic relationship. It highlights the strange circumstances of his first marriage and provides rTrade ReviewInvaluable... superb and fascinating biography adds enormously to our understanding of the man * Evening Standard *The strength of his approach lying in his careful and judicious sifting of the evidence, and in the writing, which possesses an admirable clarity that Orwell himself would have appreciated * Independent *[Orwell is].a voice that speaks as urgently to our times as it did to his * Economist *Bowker's biography is that of a scholar... he has the ability to select the right detail and let it speak for itself * Sunday Telegraph *Magisterial * Daily Mail *In all his complex contradictions, Orwell comes to energetic life * Publishers Weekly *An exhilaratingly crowded book * INDEPENDENT *Invaluable... superb and fascinating biography adds enormously to our understanding of the man * EVENING STANDARD *Bowker's biography is that of a scholar... he has the ability to select the right detail and let it speak for itself * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *Magisterial * DAILY MAIL *

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Book SynopsisFairy tales shape our cultures and enrich our imaginations; their narrative stability and cultural durability are incontestable.

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Book SynopsisAs featured on PBS’s The Great American Read This new edition of Swift's satiric classic is based on the 1726 text—the edition textual scholars now consider the most authoritative.

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Book SynopsisTracing the developing modernist aesthetic in the thought and writings of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf, Deborah Parsons considers the cultural, social and personal influences upon the three writers. Exploring the connections between their theories, Parsons pays particular attention to their work on: forms of realism characters and consciousness gender and the novel time and history. An understanding of these three thinkers is fundamental to a grasp on modernism, making this an indispensable guide for students of modernist thought. It is also essential reading for those who wish to understand debates about the genre of the novel or the nature of literary expression, which were given a new impetus by the pioneering figures of Joyce, Richardson and Woolf.Trade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2007"A clear, concise introduction to modernist views of the novel"J. W. Moffett, Kentucky Wesleyan College, for CHOICE magazine, Sep 2007, vol 45, no. 01, p. 374. "This one does an amazing job precisely because it manages to prepare readers without taking the sense of discovery away. Parsons is the kind of guide you want for an introduction of this sort: clear, focused, balanced, learned, and attuned to her audience's needs."--James Joyce QuarterlyTable of ContentsWhy Joyce, Woolf and Richardson? Key Ideas 1. A New Realism. Realism and Reality. Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism. 2. Character and Consciousness 3. Gender and the Novel 4. Time and History After Joyce Further Reading. Works Cited

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Book SynopsisMarking the 50th anniversary of Lewis death, The Intellectual World of C.S. Lewis sees leading Christian thinker Alister McGrath offering a fresh approach to understanding the key themes at the centre of Lewis theological work and intellectual development.Trade Review“I have read many of Lewis's works repeatedly over the years and have read much of the secondary literature on him. The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewisdoes a good job in placing him in the intellectual context of his time.” (Modern-day Pilgrim, 8 April 2014) “McGrath’s volume is useful to both Lewis scholars and lay readers interested in Lewis or the themes with which he engaged.” (The Way, 1 April 2014) “There are acute and stimulating observations on Surprised by Joy as autobiography cast in a Christian mould, and its reliability as a source for historians. There are two particularly fine chapters showing the long-range influence on Lewis of the tradition of classical, medieval and early modern literature.” (Peter Webster's Blog, 22 January 2014) “Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.” (Choice, 1 December 2013) “Many will also be grateful for these two books by Alister McGrath. Both reflect his thorough research, careful weighing of evidence, wide reading, and clarity of expression. . . The book contains useful studies on different aspects of Lewis as a Christian thinker; and I particularly enjoyed the slightly mischievous chapter in which McGrath argues that Lewis should be seen as a “real” theologian, not just the amateur one that he himself claimed to be.” (Church Times, 22 November 2013) “There is more to be said about Lewis as apologist and theologian but McGrath has written what will long be regarded as the essential guide.” (The Church of England Newspaper, 23 June 2013) “McGrath is ingenious and persuasive in searching Lewis’s writings for clues to his private life … [A] devoted and meticulous biography.” (The Times Literary Supplement, 21 June 2013) “Alister McGrath's biography of C.S. Lewis was an incredible exploration of one of the greatest minds in the history of Christian thought. I've always enjoyed reading Lewis because of the way he explains concepts in a way that is refreshing and inspiring. I found McGrath to have that kind of way with words in his exploration of Lewis' life. He takes the exploration a step further in a new companion book to the Lewis biography, THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD OF C.S. LEWIS.” (Tom Farr Reviews, 1 June 2013)Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii A Brief Biography of C. S. Lewis ix Introduction 1 1. The Enigma of Autobiography: Critical Reflections on Surprised by Joy 7 2. The "New Look": Lewis's Philosophical Context at Oxford in the 1920s 31 3. A Gleam of Divine Truth: The Concept of Myth in Lewis's Thought 55 4. The Privileging of Vision: Lewis's Metaphors of Light, Sun, and Sight 83 5. Arrows of Joy: Lewis's Argument from Desire 105 6. Reason, Experience, and Imagination: Lewis's Apologetic Method 129 7. A "Mere Christian": Anglicanism and Lewis's Religious Identity 147 8. Outside the "Inner Ring": Lewis as a Theologian 163 Works by Lewis Cited 185 Index 187

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Book SynopsisIn this magisterial volume, first published in 1932, Eliot gathered his choice of the miscellaneous reviews and literary essays he had written since 1917 when he became assistant editor of The Egoist. In his preface to the third edition in 1951 he wrote: ''For myself this book is a kind of historical record of my interests and opinions.'' The text includes some of his most important criticism, especially parts of The Sacred Wood, Homage to John Dryden, the essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, For Lancelot Andrewes and Essays Ancient and Modern.

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Book SynopsisA brave man and a brave poet.' Bob DylanUtterly extraordinary.' GuardianA torrent of textual splendor.' Los Angeles TimesFrom growing up as an orphan in 1920s New York, to serving in the Navy at the D-Day landings in Normandy, to a vagabond life drinking in Parisian cafes, to befriending America's greatest counter-cultural writers, Little Boy has seen it all. This is the story of one man's extraordinary life a story steeped in the exhilarating energy of the Beats. It is a novel serving as the literary last will and testament of the iconic publisher and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti: a meditation on his one hundred years on the planet, rich in wisdom, emotion and memories.

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