Literary Criticism

Curran here confronts the popular stereotype that the Romantics either accepted or rejected previously established literary genres. He proposes rather that they adapted traditional poetic forms to suit their own...

Most people most of the time want to live for ever. But there is another truth: the longing for oblivion. With pain, wit, and humour, the art of Samuel Beckett...

By the year 2000 the term "working class" had fallen into disuse in the United States, and "proletariat" was so obsolete it was known only to a few bitter Marxist...

New digital technology, falling production costs and a new type of company offering publishing services have contributed to self-publishing becoming a viable option for writers, rather than a poor second...

Authors will benefit hugely from this practical book by seeing how effective they can be at helping to promote their own books. Alison Baverstock encourages authors to work with publishers...

The extraordinary historical consequences of errors and fictional inventions.SERENDIPITIES is an iconoclastic, dazzlingly erudite and witty demonstration, by one of the world's most brilliant thinkers, of how myths and lunacies...

In his characteristically iconoclastic and original way, Gould argues that progress and increasing complexity are not inevitable features of the evolution of life on Earth. Further, if we wish to...

Like it or not, the internet has become integral to every aspect of our lives, with smart phones, tablet computers and wifi enabling us to communicate easily and instantly.Whether you're...

Many people feel they might have a book in them - but how do you know whether you have what it takes to be a writer, whether your writing is...

A classic of literary criticism from one of the world's greatest novelists and author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'A great novelist who is also a great critic.' GuardianCervantes, Joyce,...

Whether it's a guide you've produced with your local history society, a collection of poems you want to share with friends, or your epic novel that should surely earn you...

The Book-Makers is a celebration of 550 years of the printed book, told through the lives of eighteen extraordinary men and women who took the book in radical new directions:...

Winner of the Samuel Johnson PrizeHow did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating...

The Dostoevsky scholar Robert Louis Jackson said Dostoevsky's becoming is of course our own becoming: to know Dostoevsky has been to know our own century and ourselves. Remembering the End...

Opening with the revolution-era debates of the 1790s, Borderlines reads Romantic genders across a mobile syntax, tuned to such figures as the stylized "feminine" poetess, the aberrant "masculine" woman, male...

This work is an attempt to look beyond science fiction as a series of texts and authors, and to try to see it for what it is - a peculiarly...

Going to see a 'Shakespeare' and want a quick run-down on the plot? Studying Shakespeare and want to know who's who? Teaching the 'Henrys' and need a handy guide to...

This new critical edition, including Mark Musa's classic translation, provides students with a clear, readable verse translation accompanied by ten innovative interpretations of Dante's masterpiece.

Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell's entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand...

This new translation of Montaigne's immortal Essays received great acclaim when it was first published in The Complete Works of Montaigne in the 1957 edition. The New York Times said,...

Do you want to take your fiction writing to the next level?LEARN FROM THE MASTERS"Adam Sexton taught me how to read like a writer--and, in a way, how to write...

In the 1960s a radical concept emerged from the great French thinker Jacques Derrida. Read the book that changed the way we think; read Writing and Difference, the classic introduction.

This series of "Companions" is designed for readers who approach the authors of the ancient world with little or no knowledge of Latin or Greek, or of the classical world....

Reissued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses' includes a new preface taking account of scholarly and critical development since its original publication. It shows how the...

A selection of George Orwell's prescient, clear-eyed and stimulating writing on the subjects of truth and lies. With an introduction by Alan Johnson.'Freedom is the freedom to say that two...

Key features of this text: How to study the text Author and historical background General and detailed summaries Commentary on themes, structure, characters, language and style Glossaries Test questions and...

When Dionysus the Renegade faked a Sophocles text in 400BC (cunningly inserting the acrostic 'Heraclides is ignorant of letters') to humiliate an academic rival, he paved the way for two...

In 1623 the actors John Heminges and Henry Condell assembled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, better known as The First Folio. In doing so they preserved literature's most...

Featuring nine in-depth interviews with Mike Murphy and three round-table discussions with fellow Irish writers and critics, Reading the Future creates a unique freeze-frame portrait of Ireland's literary culture at...

Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in...

Originally published in 1923, Jean Toomer's Cane remains an innovative literary work-part drama, party poetry, part fiction. This revised Norton Critical Edition builds upon the First Edition (1988), which was...

In Dysphoria Mundi, Paul B. Preciado has written a mutant text assembled from essays, philosophy, poetry and autofiction that captures a moment of profound change and possibility. Rooted in the...