Literary Criticism

What we know of Raymond Chandler is shrouded in secrets and half-truths as deceptive as anything in his magisterial novel The Long Goodbye. Now, drawing on new interviews, previously unpublished...

An in-depth exploration, through his plays and poems, of the philosophy of Shakespeare as a great poet, a great dramatist and a "great mind". Written by a leading Shakespearean scholar...

A novel is an act, an intervention, which, most often, the naive reader takes as a representation. The novel intervenes to modify or correct our conventional notions of a situation...

Follow in the footsteps of some of the world's most famous authors on the journeys which inspired their greatest works in this beautiful illustrated atlas. Some truly remarkable works of...

Reading, Writing, and Romanticism bridges a perceived gulf between materialist and idealist approaches to the reader. Informed by an historical awareness of Romantic hermeneutics and its later developments (as well...

The stories of the Trojan war and Helen of Troy, Patrolcus and Achilles, the Sirens and the Cyclops are embedded in western culture, yet readers often fail to recognise that...

Charlotte Bronte dedicated Jane Eyre to William Makepeace Thackeray, setting literary London ablaze with gossip. Ayn Rand dedicated Atlas Shrugged to both her husband and her lover. Sylvia Plath dedicated...

Penguin Pocket Writer's Handbook is the ideal companion for anyone looking for a quick, effective guide to the art of writing good English. Whether working on grammar for a business...

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:...

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.

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...