This book argues that McCarthy's works convey a profound moral vision, and use intertextuality, moral philosophy, and questions of genre to advance that vision. It focuses upon the ways in which McCarthy's fiction is in ceaseless conversation with literary and philosophical tradition, examining McCarthy's investment in influential thinkers from Marcus Aurelius to Hannah Arendt, and poets, playwrights, and novelists from Dante and Shakespeare to Fyodor Dostoevsky and Antonio Machado. The book shows how McCarthy's fiction grapples with abiding moral and metaphysical issues: the nature and problem of evil; the idea of God or the transcendent; the credibility of heroism in the modern age; the question of moral choice and action; the possibility of faith, hope, love, and goodness; the meaning and limits of civilization; and the definition of what it is to be human. This study will appeal alike to readers, teachers, and scholars of Cormac McCarthy.

EVIE EPWORTH IS TEN YEARS OLDER. BUT IS SHE ANY WISER?! 'A golden ray of sunshine. If you're after a funny, uplifting summer read then this is for you!' Libby Page, author of The Lido 'A joyous way to spend an afternoon.' Joannna Nadin, author of The Double Life of Daisy Hemmings Yorkshire Post: 'Taylor's writing is sublime, effortlessly combining humour with pathos and spot-on period detail while sensitively exploring themes such as loss, grief, love and death. It's sure to be another hit.' Yorkshire Post 'A thoroughly uplifting and unputdownable sequel to the bestselling The Miseducation of Evie Epworth.' Waterstones 1972. Ten years on from the events of The Miseducation of Evie Epworth and Evie is settled in London working for the BBC. She has everything she's ever dreamed of (a career, a leatherette briefcase, an Ossie Clark poncho) but, following an unfortunate incident involving Princess Anne and a Hornsea Pottery mug, she finds herself having to rethink her life and piece together work, love, grief and multiple pairs of cork-soled platform sandals. Ghosts from the past and the spirit of the future collide in a joyous adventure that sees Evie navigate the choppy waters of her messy twenties. Can a 1960s miseducation prepare her for the growing pains of the 1970s? Big-hearted, uplifting, bittersweet and tender, All About Evie is a novel fizzing with wit and alive to the power of friendship in all its forms. Praise for The Miseducation of Evie Epworth 'Tight, clever and riddled with wit. Like discovering Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones for the first time.' Joanna Nadin, author of The Queen of Bloody Everything 'A sweet, fizzy sherbet dib-dab of a book - deliciously nostalgic, hugely funny and ultimately heartwarming. The perfect book for our times.' Veronica Henry 'Such a joyful and uplifting read. Just the sort of thing that people will want to be reading right now.' Anita Rani, Radio 2 Book Club 'Full of fabulous characters, sprinkled with joy and drenched in wit.' Milly Johnson

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.

Reading a wide range of novels from post-war Germany to Israeli, Palestinian and postcolonial writers, The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature is a comprehensive exploration of changing cultural perceptions of Jewishness in contemporary writing. Examining how representations of Jewishness in contemporary fiction have wrestled with such topics as the Holocaust, Israeli-Palestinian relations and Jewish diaspora experiences, Isabelle Hesse demonstrates the 'colonial' turn taken by these representations since the founding of the Jewish state. Following the dynamics of this turn, the book demonstrates new ways of questioning received ideas about victimhood and power in contemporary discussions of postcolonialism and world literature.

In a follow-up to his previous Homeric studies, noted classicist Paolo Vivante explores Homer's verse, highlighting rhythm rather than metre. Rhythmical qualities, he argues, constitute the force of the verse-for example, in the way the words take position and in the way each pause hints suspense, producing an immediate sense of time. Vivante's main concern is not with the techniques or rules of the verse-composition, but more philosophically with verse itself as a fundamental form of human expression. This study will be of interest to both students and scholars.

William Faulkner's first ventures into print culture began far from the world of highbrow New York publishing houses such as Boni & Liveright or Random House and little magazines such as the Double-Dealer. With that diverse publishing history in mind, this collection explores Faulkner's multifaceted engagements, as writer and reader, with the United States and international print cultures of his era, along with how these cultures have mediated his relationship with various twentieth- and twenty-first-century audiences. These essays address the place of Faulkner and his writings in the creation, design, publishing, marketing, reception, and collecting of books, in the culture of twentieth-century magazines, journals, newspapers, and other periodicals (from pulp to avantgarde), in the history of modern readers and readerships, and in the construction and cultural politics of literary authorship. Several contributors focus on Faulkner's sensational 1931 novel Sanctuary to illustrate the author's multifaceted relationship to the print ecology of his time, tracing the novel's path from the wellsprings of Faulkner's artistic vision to the novel's reception among reviewers, tastemakers, intellectuals, and other readers of the early 1930s. Other essayists discuss Faulkner's early notices, the Saturday Review of Literature, Saturday Evening Post, men's magazines of the 1950s, and Cold War modernism. With contributions by: Greg Barnhisel, John N. Duvall, Kristin Fujie, Sarah E. Gardner, Jaime Harker, Kristi Rowan Humphreys, Robert Jackson, Mary A. Knighton, Jennifer Nolan, Carl Rollyson, Tim A. Ryan, Jay Satterfield, Erin A. Smith, and Yung-Hsing Wu.

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.

Popular fiction follows literature professors wherever they go. At coffee shops or out for drinks, after faculty meetings or classes, even at family reunions - they are persistently pressed to talk about bestselling novels. Questions immediately follow: What do I mean when I say a book is "good"? Why do contemporary novels like these, conversations like these, matter to professors of literature? Shouldn't they be spending their time re-reading The Great Gatsby? The Ulysses Delusion confronts these questions and answers their call for more engaged conversations about books. Through topics like the Oprah's Book Club, Harry Potter, and Chick Lit, Cecilia Konchar Farr explores the lively, democratic, and gendered history of novels in the US as a context for understanding how avid readers and literary professionals have come to assess them so differently.

In this broad-ranging study of German fiction by women 1770-1914, Anna Richards adds a new dimension to existing debates on the association of women and illness in literature. Drawing on a number of primary medical sources, she constructs a history of women's self-starvation, eating behaviour, and wasting diseases in particular, and examines the portrayal of the 'wasting heroine' in works by female and selected male authors in this context. It becomes clear that though the wasting heroine sometimes reinforces popular notions of female fragility, in certain works she represents a rejection of a traditionally female role or allows her author to make a socially critical point about women's status in society. As well as shedding light on many unduly neglected women writers, Richards offers a valuable insight into the literary and historical origins of a modern phenomenon.

Representation of desiring subjects in the novel is one of the most illuminating issues in the area of ancient gender and sexuality, for such narratives subject societal norms to acute critique. This volume brings together fourteen essays originally given as oral presentations at the Fourth International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN IV), held in Lisbon in July 2008. Employing feminist and psychoanalytic approaches, each offers a provocative investigation of sexual subjectivity as presented in the text or texts under discussion. The collection as a whole demonstrates the gradual convergence of formerly distinct norms of gendered behavior under pressure of emerging social realities.The editors of this volume are all well-known scholars in the fields of ancient narrative and/or ancient sexuality. Contributors include leading experts in these fields and emerging scholars whose research suggests directions for future exploration.

Exam board: Edexcel, OCR, Cambridge Assessment International Education Level & Subject: AS and A Level English Literature First teaching: September 2015 First examination: June 2017, June 2022/23

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was a lifelong and assiduous letter-writer at a time when the familiar letter was often virtually an art-form in itself. He had a wide circle of correspondents, and was a close friend of Shelley, whom he assisted over both personal and business affairs after Shelley's abandonment of his wife Harriet and departure to Italy. Friend also of many Radicals of the early nineteenth century, his letters often display the satiric wit of his published prose works such as Headlong Hall and Crotchet Castle. In the later part of his life he rose to high position in the East India Company's service, succeeding James Mill, under whom he had worked, as Examiner. This is the first time his extensive correspondence has been gathered together and given scholarly annotation: the two-volume edition will be invaluable both to students of Romantic literature and to historians of the period.

This lively, accessible book reveals the character - and timeliness - of Alexander Pope's thinking and art. G. Douglas Atkins focuses on the religious position of a poet who would not abandon the Roman Catholic Church. In our own highly partisan culture, such a position offers an important example. Bringing his expertise in religion and literature to bear, Atkins establishes that Pope was, as an anti-sectarian, not a Deist but a Catholic, a layman, and essayist. Through comparison with John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and T.E. Eliot, this study sheds new light on 'The Universal Prayer, ' 'An Essay on Criticism, ' Moral Essays, and the four-part Dunciad. Ultimately, Pope emerges as a religious poet of the first rank.

"Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer have put together an excellent collection of original articles which demonstrates the range of lesbian literary scholarship as a field and the important nuance and insight it is contributing to our knowledge of Woolf's life and writing in particular."--"Woolf Studies Annual"

The last two decades have seen a resurgence of critical and popular attention to Virginia Woolf's life and work. Such traditional institutions as "The New York Review of Books" now pair her with William Shakespeare in promotional advertisements; her face is used to sell everything from Barnes & Noble books to Bass Ale.

Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings represents the first book devoted to Woolf's lesbianism. Divided into two sections, Lesbian Intersections and Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels, these essays focus on how Woolf's private and public experience and knowledge of same-sex love influences her shorter fiction and novels. Lesbian Intersections includes personal narratives that trace the experience of reading Woolf through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels provides lesbian interpretations of the individual novels, including "Orlando, The Waves," and "The Years,"

Breaking new ground in our understanding of the role Woolf's love for women plays in her major writing, these essays shift the emphasis of lesbian interpretations from Woolf's life to her work.

Dudley Randall was one of the foremost voices in African American literature during the twentieth century, best known for his poetry and his work as the editor and publisher of Broadside Press in Detroit. While he published six books of poetry during his life, much of his work is currently out of print or fragmented among numerous anthologies. Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall brings together his most popular poems with his lesser-known short stories, first published in The Negro Digest during the 1960s, and several of his essays, which profoundly influenced the direction and attitude of the Black Arts movement. Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall is arranged in seven sections: "Images from Black Bottom," "Wars: At Home and Abroad," "The Civil Rights Era," "Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects," "Love Poems," "Dialectics of the Black Aesthetic," and "The Last Leap of the Muse." Poems and prose are mixed throughout the volume and are arranged roughly chronologically. Taken as a whole, Randall's writings showcase his skill as a wordsmith and his affinity for themes of love, human contradictions, and political action. His essays further contextualize his work by revealing his views on race and writing, aesthetic form, and literary and political history. Editor Melba Joyce Boyd introduces this collection with an overview of Randall's life and career. The collected writings in Roses and Revolutions not only confirm the talent and the creative intellect of Randall as an author and editor but also demonstrate why his voice remains relevant and impressive in the twenty-first century. Randall was named the first Poet Laureate of the City of Detroit and received numerous awards for his literary work, including the Life Achievement Award from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1986. Students and teachers of African American literature as well as readers of poetry will appreciate this landmark volume.

This study focuses on how Frankenstein works: how the story is told and why it is so rich and gripping. Part I uses carefully selected short extracts for close textual analysis, while Part II examines Shelley's life, the historical and literary contexts of the novel, and offers a sample of key criticism.

Written for librarians, teachers, and researchers, this is the second five-year supplement to the authors' Dictionary of American Children's Fiction, 1960-1984 (Greenwood, 1986). Its 567 entries cover 189 award-winning children's books by 136 authors published from 1990 to 1994. Included are concise critical reviews of novels, biographical profiles of authors, and descriptions of memorable characters. An appendix lists books by the awards they have won, and an extensive index allows complete access to the wealth of material contained within this reference work. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for those works that critics have singled out to receive awards or have placed on citation lists during the five years covered by the volume. The reference also contains biographical entries for leading authors of children's fiction, with entries focusing on how the author's life relates to children's literature and to particular works in this dictionary. The volume provides a list of awards, along with an appendix classifying individual works by the awards they have won. An extensive index provides full access to the wealth of information in this book.

"Gambling permeated the daily lives of eighteenth-century Britons of all classes. This book explicates the relationship between the rampant gambling in eighteenth-century England, the new forms of gambling-inspired capitalism that transformed British society, and novels that interrogate the new socio-economy of long odds and lucky breaks"--

This essential discussion of Amy Tan's life and works is a necessity for high school students and an enriching supplement for book club members. A tour-de-force in Asian American writing, Amy Tan has created works that are essential to high school and undergraduate literature classes and are often book club selections. Reading Amy Tan is a handy resource that offers both groups plot summaries of five of Tan's novels, as well as character and thematic analysis. The handbook also provides an overview of Tan's life and discusses how she emerged onto the scene as a novelist. Tan's typical themes, including Asian American issues and mother-daughter relationships, are examined in relation to today's current events and pop culture. Readers will also discover how and where they can find Tan on the Internet, and how the media has received her works. The "What Do I Read Next" chapter will help readers find other authors and works that deal with similar subjects. This handbook is an indispensable tool for both high school and public libraries. Summarizes each of Tan's novels, offering a plot summary and a discussion of themes, settings, and characters Provides questions that can be used to generate classroom and book club discussion Includes sidebars to highlight interesting information about the author and her work Offers a selected, general bibliography of print and electronic resources to facilitate further study

Paule Marshall (b. 1929) is a major contributor to the canons of African American and Caribbean American literature. In 1959, she published her first novel, "Brown Girl, Brownstones," and was quickly recognized as a writer of great talent and insight on important questions about gender, race, and immigration in American society. In 1981, the Feminist Press rediscovered her novel and reprinted it, earning Marshall the informal title of grandmother of the renaissance of African American women's writing that emerged in the early 1970s. Over the course of her fifty-year career, Marshall has published five novels, two collections of short stories, numerous essays, and a memoir. In recognition of her work, she has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and, in 1992, the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

"Conversations with Paule Marshall" is the first collection of her interviews, and as such it provides the first comprehensive account of the stages of this writer's life. The most recent conversation took place in 2009 following the publication of her memoir, "Triangular Road"; the oldest takes readers back to 1971, just after the publication of her second novel, "The Chosen Place, the Timeless People." In this collection of interviews, Marshall discusses the sources of her writing, her involvement in the civil rights movement, her understanding of the relationship between art and politics (as framed, in part, by her discussions with Maya Angelou and Malcolm X), and her evolving understanding of the relationship between the wide wings of the African diaspora.