Literary Criticism

SHAKESPEARE: increasingly irrelevant or lone literary genius of the Western canon?'Powerful and illuminating' James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, winner of the Baillie...

'The hell with it . . . let chaos reign . . . louder music, more wine . . . All the old traditions are exhausted and no new one...

In their day, the Anglo-Irish were the ascendant minority--Protestant, loyalist, privileged landholders in a recumbent, rural, and Catholic land. Their world is vanished, but shades of the Anglo-Irish linger in...

The Irish Writer and the World is a major new book by one of Ireland's most prominent scholars and cultural commentators. Declan Kiberd, author of the award-winning Irish Classics and...

This selection of Bowen's non-fictional writings includes her wonderfully funny, precise recollections of schooldays and childhood experiences, her brilliant evocations of London in wartime and of the Irish 'big house',...

______________________________'Sharp and observant writing ... A manifesto for the millennial woman.' Evening StandardModern life is full of choices. We're told that happiness lies within and we can be whoever we...

In these wonderfully stylish and eclectic essays, Charles Nicholl pursues the fugitive traces of the past with the skill and relish that have earned him a reputation as one of...

`A generation-defining collection published posthumously... Her voice is relevant, sharp, fresh, unfiltered and poetic, with a dry wit. You can dive in and out of her questioning and her musings...

Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life's work. She...

Spanning nearly two decades, these essays turn on a central theme: what is meant by reading a serious text at a time when theories of language and literature question the...

Presenting a study of film as storytelling, this book examines how the great works of cinema history have used the principles of myth to create stories which are dramatic, entertaining,...

An English teacher's love letter to reading and the many ways literature can make us, and our lives, better.How can a Victorian poem help teenagers understand YouTube misogyny? Can Jane...

"Thompson believed the folktale to be an important and living art, underlying all literary narrative forms. Most of all he wanted to acquaint readers with most of the great folktales...

Beowulf, the major surviving poem in Old English, is composed in a language that is rich but often difficult. This fully annotated edition makes the poem more accessible in its...

Everything you need to know about The Handmaid's Tale to succeed in your A Level or undergraduate studies. York Notes Advanced provide everything you need to know about Atwood's modern...

A blend of literary history, memoir, and self-help that shows how French literature can bring humor, happiness, and romance to our lives Like many people the world over, Viv Groskop...

"How should a poet properly live and write? What is his relationship to be to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and to his contemporary world?" These...

James Joyce, an Irish Catholic by upbringing, was described as ""the greatest Jew of all"" by his countryman and fellow writer Frank O'Connor. In this exploration of Joyce's identity with...

From the private papers of Mark Twain and Mozart to those of Robert Browning and Nelson, Love Letters of Great Men collects together some of the most romantic letters in...

A.C. Bradley put Shakespeare on the map for generations of readers and students for whom the plays might not otherwise have become "real" at all' writes John Bayley in his...

'Maeve's Times is funny and clever and kind, which are excellent qualities in both books and people' Irish Times'As someone who fell off a chair not long ago trying to...

Expanded second edition of this hugely successful introduction to literary theory, a book which has already proven itself as the first port of call for students - Two new chapters...

For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his status as one of Britain's...

The Book of Other People is just that: a book of other people. Open its covers and you'll make a whole host of new acquaintances. Nick Hornby and Posy Simmonds...

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese's hit Netflix series, Pretend It's a City.'The gold...

The Underground Sea is a succinct, urgent collection of writing from John Berger's archive. It brings together for the first time his work on mineworkers and the miners' strikes and...

What makes a good death? A good daughter? In 2009, with her forties and a harsh wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker's mother was diagnosed with primary progressive...

Can we ever be wholly free? In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. The...

John McGahern did not spread himself thinly as a writer. Nearly all of his creative energy went into what was central for him: the great novels and stories that are...

'Wordy is about the intoxication of writing; my sense of playful versatility; different voices for different matters: the polemical voice for political columns; the sharp-eyed descriptive take for profiles; poetic...

In these seventeen essays (and one short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the...

The World of Sherlock Holmes delves into the detective's storied history to explore the myths and reality of the era where Holmes was first born - a time when crime...

Neil Cornwell's study, while endeavouring to present an historical survey of absurdist literature and its forbears, does not aspire to being an exhaustive history of absurdism. Rather, it pauses on...

Author of the Booker-longlisted novel Second Place'Cements her reputation as one of the most fierce and elegant chroniclers of how we live now.' Stephanie Merritt, ObserverCoventry is a collection of...

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism is the gold standard for anyone who wishes to understand the development and current state of literary theory. Offering 185 pieces (31 of...

A celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world', these thirty-plus essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie dispel the myth of...