When Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, friends and admirers remembered him as an eccentric man whose outer life was continuously fed by deeper spiritual currents. But scholars have since focused almost exclusively on Thoreau's literary, political, and scientific contributions. This book offers the first in-depth study of Thoreau's religious thought and experience. In it Alan D. Hodder recovers the lost spiritual dimension of the writer's life, revealing a deeply religious man who, despite his rejection of organized religion, possessed a rich inner life, characterized by a sort of personal, experiential, nature-centered, and eclectic spirituality that finds wider expression in America today. At the heart of Thoreau's life were episodes of exhilaration in nature that he commonly referred to as his ecstasies. Hodder explores these representations of ecstasy throughout Thoreau's writings-from the riverside reflections of his first book through Walden and the later journals, when he conceived his journal writing as a spiritual discipline in itself and a kind of forum in which to cultivate experiences of contemplative non-attachment. In doing so, Hodder restores to our understanding the deeper spiritual dimension of Thoreau's life to which his writings everywhere bear witness.

Answering the eternal question... WHAT TO WATCH NEXT? Looking for a box set to get your adrenaline racing or to escape to a different era? In need of a good laugh to lift your spirits? Hunting for a TV show that the whole family can watch together? If you're feeling indecisive about your next binge-watching session, we've done the hard work for you. Featuring 1,000 carefully curated reviews written by a panel of TV connoisseurs, What To Watch When offers up the best show suggestions for every mood and moment.

'There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them'. 'How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue'. If you want to make like Elizabeth Bennet and live happily ever after with a man who owns half of Derbyshire, then arm yourself with this Austentatious guide to flirting and courtship.

Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market delves into the influences and pressures of the marketplace on this genre, which this volume contends has been both gatekeeper as well as a significant force in shaping the production and consumption of this literature.

Based on the Cambridge Edition of Lawrence's letters and works, this is a systematic study of his neglected early novels and short stories. Michael Black considers that these should be taken seriously as a representative part of Lawrence's entire output and demonstrates how they show originality. He places Lawrence in a new light as an artist, especially considering the relationship between his art and thought.

This valuable compilation of articles offers original, historical, biographical and literary perspectives on the works of Stendhal. Eleven essays plunge the reader into Stendhal's mythological universe, providing new insights into the network of symbols, images and obsessional themes that run through his works. This multi-faceted collection examines Stendhal as the problematic subject for a biography, as autobiographer in his own right, as journalist, novelist, and innovator in the realm of fictional devices, and as the great representative of that literature of ideas first acclaimed by Balzac. Topics addressed include the writer's own enigmatic persona, his autobiographical writings, his encounter with George Sand, and his journalistic career in Italy, as well as the structure imposed on his novels by an Oedipal conflict he himself perceives in pre-Freudian terms, his experiments with multiple narrative point of view, and a feminist perspective on his use of the epistolary form as a device to enhance the plot.

Given their pedagogical nature, many Victorian novels are highly politicized; their narratives are filtered through the value schemes, social views, and conscious purposes of their authors. Victorian women were largely expected to dedicate themselves to the social and moral betterment of their families. Women were expected to be soft, meek, quiet, modest, submissive, gentle, patient, and spiritual; men were supposed to be aggressive, assertive, resilient, disciplined, and competitive. These expectations were repeatedly endorsed through the conduct books of the period, which encouraged people to adhere to "proper" behavior. The Victorian era also viewed fiction as a didactic tool and as a means to propagate morality. Thus novels of the period typically present women as subordinate to men and as angels of the home. Women who conform to the social norms are usually rewarded in these fictitious worlds, whereas women who violate society's standards are often penalized. Certainly the novels of Charles Dickens fall into the larger didactic trend of Victorian fiction, and like other works of the period, his novels overtly support the conventional values of Victorian society. Dickens typically uses descriptive detail to register approval or disapproval of certain women, and these women are rewarded or chastized through his plots. But on a less obvious level, Dickens also challenges the prevailing Victorian attitude toward women. A close look at his works shows that patriarchs do not automatically deserve the respect they command from their privileged social positions. Women--however virtuous--are unable to produce moral or social change, and many women succeed outside the constraints ofdomesticity. This book provides a penetrating analysis of how Dickens' novels ultimately fail to promote the conventional Victorian behavioral ideal for women and discusses how his works subvert the domestic ideology of the nineteenth century.

The gripping new revenge thriller from the bestselling author of The Fall and The Trap. No one can be trusted.... Amongst the wealth and glitter of St Tropez, Sky Kennedy is living her best life, with the perfect man by her side. Rich and gorgeous, Karim has shown her a world she could have barely imagined, and she doesn't want it to end. So when Karim suddenly sends her packing back to the UK, Sky is shocked - what could she have done to upset Karim? And will she ever see him again? Ryan Callahan has been tracking Karim for years and will do anything to bring the man down. He knows Karim is using Sky for his own ends and can't believe another young woman has fallen for Karim's lies. But maybe Sky could be the perfect bait to snare Karim once and for all... But Sky's no fool and she won't be played by either man. Because maybe there is a twist in this tale that no one saw coming.... Praise for Evie Hunter: 'A brilliant read that hooked me from the outset. The Fall is a tale of sweet revenge that I couldn't tear myself away from!' Bestselling author Gemma Rogers

This book is the first study of disability in postcolonial fiction. Focusing on canonical novels, it explores the metaphorical functions and material presence of disabled child characters. Barker argues that progressive disability politics emerge from postcolonial concerns, and establishes dialogues between postcolonialism and disability studies.

This unique volume provides a bibliography and analysis of American women's literary interpretations of war and peace during the twentieth century. Chapters cover World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, nuclear war, and fictional interpretations of war and peace that span more than one war or are nonspecific to a certain war. Annotated entries on novels and short fiction provide an analysis of the work's representation of the effect of war on women. Annotations include excerpts from the works themselves and from reviews. The bibliography includes works by such well-known writers as Edith Wharton, Joyce Carol Oates, Cynthia Oick, and Bobbie Ann Mason, as well as many lesser known writers. The work begins with an introductory discussion of women's fiction on war. Each chapter begins with an introductory overview of the war literature in that chapter. In addition to the annotated entries, each chapter concludes with a list of sources of literary criticism and bibliographic resources. The work concludes with author, title, and subject indexes.

"In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in Hugo Gernsback, and the start of a serious study of the contribution he made to the development of science fiction. . . . It seemed to me that the time was due to reinvestigate the Gernsback era and dig into the facts surrounding the origins of Amazing Stories. I wanted to find out exactly why Hugo Gernsback had launched the magazine, what he was trying to achieve, and to consider what effects he had-good and bad. . . . Too many writers and editors from the Gernsback days have been unjustly neglected, or unfairly criticized. Now, I hope, Robert A. W. Lowndes and I have provided the grounds for a fair consideration of their efforts, and a true reconstruction of the development of science fiction. It's the closest to time travel you'll ever get. I hope you enjoy the trip."-Mike Ashley, Preface

The detective, as a preeminent figure in all forms of American popular culture, has become the subject of a variety of theoretical exploration. By investigating that figure, these essays demonstrate how the genre embodies all the contradictions of American society and the ways in which literature and the media attempt to handle those contradictions. Issues of class, gender, and race; the interaction of film and literature; and generic evolution are fundamental to any understanding of the American detective in all of his or her forms. Beginning with essays about Raymond Chandler's treatment of women, Part I concentrates on writers of the genre whose detectives embody aspects of American culture in the 20th century. Through examination of the work of Elmore Leonard, Chester Himes, Sue Grafton, and others, these essays look at the influence of film on literature, how ethnicity affects the genre's conventions, and gender issues. Part II looks closely at specific detectives in the media and demonstrates how the film detective has gone from one who upholds the moral order to one who contributes to the continuation of evil. A study of television detectives confirms the necessity of formula and variation to sustain a detective over many seasons.

Locating literature at the intersection of distinct areas of thinking on the nature, scope and methods of knowledge - philosophy, theology, science, and the law - this book engages with literary texts across periods and genres to address questions of probability, problems of evidence, the uses of experiment and the poetics and ethics of doubt.

How is Hardy's development of thematics and characters matched by that of narrative techniques and his handling of time? This book uses narratological methods to stress the interdependence of content and expression in a key transitional writer between the Victorian and Modernist eras.

'In the summer of 1939, as a two-year-old in London, I was given away by my parents to a Chelsea friend and taken on the Irish Mail to Dublin.'Thus begins this extraordinary memoir by travel writer and novelist Joseph Hone, one of eight children farmed out by impecunious and inebriate parents, who was raised at Maidenhall in County Kilkenny by the historian and essayist Hubert Butler and his wife Peggy, sister of Tyrone Guthrie of Annaghmakerrig in County Monaghan. The story is told through a cache of letters discovered on Hubert Butler's death between him and his friend 'Old Joe', Little Joe's grandfather and biographer of Yeats and George Moore, upon whom fell the financial responsibility for his grandson's upbringing. This account of his childhood and youth during the 1940s and 50s in rural Ireland among the privileged and artistic elite of his generation living down-at-heel if comfortable lives in a newly emergent state, is an enthralling reminder of the happenstance and precariousness of all our lives.Like William Trevor, Joe was boarded out at Sandford Park in Dublin and then at St Columba's, both of which he documents in loving and comic detail, gaining as much stimulation from his home environment as from the excesses and disappointments of these single-sex establishments. He writes with feeling and insight of the lives of those in his circle and beyond - his teachers and foster parents and friends - working as an assistant for John Ford during the making of "The Quiet Man", and finding himself as the writer he was to become.This luminous work of autobiography and self-interrogation bears comparison with Nabokov's "Speak Memory" or Frank O'Connor's "An Only Child". It will take its place as a classic of the genre while illuminating unknown corners of Ireland's cultural landscape.

"An ambitious study, the fruit of sustained work over many years. Professor Carter's book deploys a stunning knowledge of Proust and places Carter among the first line of Proust scholars in the country."
--Roger Shattuck, Boston University

"The Proustian Quest" is the first full-length study that explores the influence of social change on Proust's vision. "In Remembrance of Things Past," Proust describes how the machines of transportation and communication transformed fashion, social mores, time-space perception, and the understanding of the laws of nature. Concentrating on the motif of speed, Carter establishes the centrality of the modern world to the novel's main themes and produces a far- reaching synthesis that demonstrates the work's profound structural unity.

This book studies literary epiphany as a modality of character in the British and American novel. Epiphany presents a significant alternative to traditional models of linking the eye, the mind, and subject formation, an alternative that consistently attracts the language of spirituality, even in anti-supernatural texts. This book analyzes how these epiphanies become "spiritual" and how both character and narrative shape themselves like constellations around such moments. This study begins with James Joyce, 'inventor' of literary epiphany, and Martin Heidegger, who used the ancient Greek concepts behind 'epiphaneia' to re-define the concept of Being. Kim then offers readings of novels by Susan Warner, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner, each addressing a different form of epiphany.

Joel Chandler Harris was internationally famous in his own time and has a surprisingly broad scholarly and popular following in ours. His portraits of slaves and former slaves, particularly Uncle Remus and Free Joe, poor whites, and Brer Rabbit, the archetypal trickster hero, have influenced many other writers, including Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and a wide array of children's authors from Beatrix Potter to A. A. Milne. Harris also left a lasting mark on popular culture, most clearly manifested through Disney's ^ISong of the South^R and at Disney World attractions featuring versions of Harris's characters. He singlehandedly preserved and made internationally famous the Brer Rabbit folktales, the largest body of African American oral folklore that the world has ever known. Additionally, Harris was a major New South journalist who accelerated the process of reconciliation between North and South and promoted racial tolerance after the Civil War. This reference book is a complete bibliographic guide to the scholarly response to Harris during the last two decades. The introduction explores such issues as Harris's renderings of black dialect, Southern character, and folklore, and his influence on popular culture. The first part is a supplement to Bickley's earlier bibliography of Harris, which covered the period 1862-1976. The second part provides more than 300 entries for books, articles, and dissertations about Harris published after 1976. Entries are grouped in sections according to year of publication, and then alphabetically within each section. Each entry is fully annotated, and a detailed index concludes the volume.

Through examining the work of W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett, Katherine Ebury shows cosmology had a considerable impact on modernist creative strategies, developing alternative reading models of difficult texts such as Finnegans Wake and 'The Trilogy'.

To what extent did Charles Dickens see himself as a medium of forces beyond his conscious control? What did he think such subconscious mechanisms might be, and how did his thoughts on the subject play out in his writings? "Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens" traces these questions through three Dickens novels: "Oliver Twist," "Dombey and Son," and "Bleak House." It is the first book-length study to approach Dickensian psychology from the vantage point of what the speculations of Dickens's--rather than of our own--had to say about mental phenomena, both normal and abnormal.

Who Is in the House? provides the first scholarly historical and psychological analysis of both the content and the appeal of women's popular fiction in America during the past two centuries. Principal attention is given to the power of the images of home and mother, and to the theme of conflict between autonomy and dependence in the female characters.

While crime fiction is one of the most widespread of all literary genres, this is the first book to treat it in its full global is the first book to treat crime fiction in its full global and plurilingual dimensions, taking the genre seriously as a participant in the international sphere of world literature. In a wide-ranging panorama of the genre, twenty critics discuss crime fiction from Bulgaria, China, Israel, Mexico, Scandinavia, Kenya, Catalonia, and Tibet, among other locales. By bringing crime fiction into the sphere of world literature, Crime Fiction as World Literature gives new insights not only into the genre itself but also into the transnational flow of literature in the globalized mediascape of contemporary popular culture.