Literary Criticism

In his monthly accounts of what he's read - along with what he may one day read - Nick Hornby brilliantly explores everything from the classic to the graphic novel,...

'Fascinating.... Wonderfully exhilarating.' Mail on SundayAn engaging, original and radical reassessment of J.R.R. Tolkien, revealing how his visionary creation of Middle-Earth is more relevant now than ever before.What is it...

This indispensable guide takes students through each step of the essay writing process, enabling them to tackle written assignments with confidence. Students will develop their ability to analyse complex concepts,...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all timeA book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept...

In this dynamic new collection of essays, critically acclaimed author Roisin Kiberd dissects the business of attaining perfection - or even normality - through consumption and body modification.Linking her personal...

Two poets, a playwright and a novelist - Michael Longley, Eavan Boland, Frank McGuiness and Anita Desai - explore in these essays aspects of the imaginative process as each has...

'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' HamletThis entertaining collection gathers together William Shakespeare's wisest and wittiest quotations. The Wit and Wisdom of William Shakespeare...

Sweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of...

For thirty years Anne Enright has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze across the world, literature and her own life, and gifting us with her precise insights.Anne...

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and...

These stories, inspired by Bach's lifelong passion for flight, filled with memories of friends from the past and friends not yet met, are woven together with warmth, honesty and courage....

Soak up the wisdom of the inimitable Nora Ephron with this stunning 20th-anniversary special edition, featuring a foreword by Dolly Alderton. The perfect gift for yourself or a friend. 'Ephron...

The insights presented in the volume are many and wide-ranging, recognizably in tune with the subtlest modern discussions of desire (such as triangulation. or loving what others love), yet offering...

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was...

An electrifying analysis of one legendary giant of twentieth-century literature by another: Beckett on Proust.The whole of Proust's world comes out of a teacup . . . When he was...

In this remarkable book Christopher Hill used the learning gathered in a lifetime's study of seventeenth-century England to carry out a major reassessment of Milton as man, politician, poet, and...

Beneath the surface we are all connected . . .'An authentically soothing, powerful, thought-provoker.'MATT HAIG'On Connection is medicine for these wounded times.'MAX PORTER'On Connection came to me when I needed...

We are in the middle of a vibrant renaissance of queer writing. But LGBTQ+ writers, characters and readers have been here since the beginning - quietly, defiantly, and persistently telling...

A collection of previously unpublished letters from America's cult icon on the art of writing.Charles Bukowski was one of our most iconoclastic, raw and riveting writers, one whose stories, poems...

In 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...

This outstanding volume offers a clear and critically engaged account of the phenomenon of science fiction. Adam Roberts provides a concise history of science fiction also explaining key concepts in...

Soak up the wisdom of the inimitable Nora Ephron with this stunning 20th-anniversary special edition, featuring a foreword by Dolly Alderton. The perfect gift for yourself or a friend. 'Ephron...

The ninth edition offers more complete works, more teachable groupings than ever before and the apparatus teachers trust. Read by more than 8 million students, The Norton Anthology of English...

An attractive new edition of two of Chomsky's most popular books on language - an ideal introduction to his pioneering work in modern linguistics. In Part I, Language and Responsibility,...

For Wilde, as for many people, reading could be as powerful and transformative an experience as falling in love. He devoured books, talked books, luxuriated in books and lavished books...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Fourteen beloved authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in this heartwarming essay collection edited by New York Times bestselling author and lifelong...