Under his real name, Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) wrote concert music and the scores for almost 50 feature films, including some of the most enduring British comedies of the twentieth century, amongst them a number in the series started by Doctor in the House and the first six Carry On films. Under the pseudonym of Edmund Crispin he enjoyed equal success as an author, writing nine highly acclaimed detective novels and a number of short crime stories, as well as compiling anthologies of science fiction which helped to increase the profile of the genre. A close friend of both Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, Montgomery did much to encourage their work. In this first biography of Montgomery, David Whittle draws on interviews with people who knew the writer and composer. These interviews, together with in-depth research, provide great insight into the development of Montgomery as a crime fiction writer and as a composer in the ever-demanding world of films. During the late 1950s and early '60s these demands were to prove too much for Montgomery. Alcoholism combined with the onset of osteoporosis and a retreat into a semi-reclusive lifestyle resulted in him writing and composing virtually nothing during the last 15 years of his life. David Whittle examines the reasons for Montgomery's early and rapid decline in this thoroughly researched and engagingly written biography.

This book was written to venture beyond interpretations of Cormac McCarthy's characters as simple, antinomian, and non-psychological; and of his landscapes as unrelated to the violent arcs of often orphaned and always emotionally isolated and socially detached characters. As McCarthy usually eschews direct indications of psychology, his landscapes allow us to infer much about their motivations. The relationship of ambivalent nostalgia for domesticity to McCarthy's descriptions of space remains relatively unexamined at book length, and through less theoretical application than close reading. By including McCarthy's latest book, this study offer the only complete study of all nine novels. Within McCarthy studies, this book extends and complicates a growing interest in space and domesticity in his work. The author combines a high regard for McCarthy's stylistic prowess with a provocative reading of how his own psychological habits around gender issues and family relations power books that only appear to be stories of masculine heroics, expressions of misogynistic fear, or antinomian rejections of civilized life.

Originally published in 1995, The Music of African American Fiction is a historical analysis of the tradition of representing music in African American fiction. The book examines the impact of evolving musical styles and innovative musicians on black culture as is manifested in the literature. The analysis begins with the slave narratives and the emergence of the first black fiction of the antebellum years and moves through the Reconstruction. This is followed by analyses of definitive fictional representations of African American music from the turn-of-the-century through Harlem Renaissance, the Depression and World War II eras through the 1960s and the Black Arts Movement. The representation of black music shapes a lineage that extends from the initial chronicles written in response to sub-human bondage to the declarations of an autonomous "black aesthetic" and dramatically influences the evolution of an African American literary tradition.

Originally published in 1999 Black Writers Abroad puts forward the theory that African American literature was born, partially within the context of a people and its writers who lived, for the most part, in slavery and bondage prior to the Civil War. It is an in-depth study of black American writers who, left the United States as expatriates. The book discusses the people that left, where they went, why they left and why they did or did not return, from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. It seeks to explain the impact exile had upon these authors' literary work and careers, as well as upon African American literary history.

Creating Yoknapatawpha is a study of the crucial interplay of reading and writing processes involved in constructing the textual environment of William Faulkner 's work, and the nature and significance of the world created by these many forces. Yoknapatawpha County, the author contends, is the product of these mainly mental processes of construction at all levels, and it is in the similar and even analogous situations that exist between readers and writers of and in the fiction that the dynamic of Faulkner 's work is most keenly discovered. The book discusses novels from throughout Faulkner 's career, and uses elements of Bakhtinian and reader-response theory, among others, to explore its subject, eschewing the limited focus both of strictly formal and more content-oriented approaches, and demonstrating the need for readers and writers to work together, whether harmoniously or otherwise. By examining the fictive nature of Yoknapatawpha, and the requirement for everybody to participate fully in its creation, we can establish useful bases for investigations into the real world issues with which Faulkner is so concerned.

Daniel Defoe is known as the father of the English novel. This is the modern critical edition of Defoe's novels. It brings together all three parts of "Robinson Crusoe" and examines their relationship. The editorial material includes an introduction to each novel, explanatory endnotes, textual notes, and a consolidated index in volume 10.

Now for the first time all the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry of popular Victorian author George Eliot is chronicled in one definitive reference. This exhaustive resource, by the editor of the award-winning "Everyone in Dickens", makes Eliot's complete works accessible to the general reader as well as the student and scholar. In addition to the seven Eliot novels, three novellas, and two short stories, all sixty-eight works of non-fiction are covered, and all poetry, long and short, is included. Using Eliot's own words, Newlin presents all the characters in the novels and other fiction, as well as useful plot and content summaries, and bibliographic data. All of Eliot's short poems are included complete, and her longer poetical pieces are extensively summarized and extracted. In addition, the set includes two short essays by Eliot which have been unknown to scholarship until now. There is also a chronology of the works set against a chronology of Eliot's life. This comprehensive reference includes a thematic concordance of every aspect of life written about by Eliot. Complete with more than 60 illustrations, many from the earliest editions of the Eliot works, it is the ultimate reference to the full body of George Eliot's literary output.

Across Palestine, from the Allenby Bridge and Ramallah, to Jerusalem and Gaza, Marcello Di Cintio has met with writers, poets, librarians, booksellers and readers, finding extraordinary stories in every corner. Stories of how revolutionary writing is smuggled from the Naqab Prison, and about what it is like to write with only two hours of electricity each day. Stories from the Gallery Cafe, whose opening three thousand creative intellectuals gathered to celebrate; and the lost generations of stories contained within the looted books that sit in Israel's National Library. Pay No Heed to the Rockets offers a window into the literary heritage of Palestine that transcends the narrow language of conflict, revealing a humanity often unreported. Paying homage to the memory of literary giants like Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani and the contemporary authors whom they continue to inspire, this evocative, lyrical journey shares both the anguish and inspiration of Palestine today.

How does magic in J. K. Rowling's universe work? Finally, the scientific secrets are revealed! The story of the boy who lived has brought the idea of magic and sorcery into mainstream fruition more than any other book series in history. Modern muggle scientists have uncovered explanations to the seemingly impossible, including answers to such questions as: Will we ever see an invisibility cloak? How hazardous is a flying broomstick like the Nimbus 2000? How has medicine made powerful potions from peculiar plants? (Felix Felicis, anyone?) Can scientists ever demonstrate Wingardium Leviosa, or the flying power of a Golden Snitch? Is it possible to stupefy someone? And many more! A perfect Harry Potter gift for anyone obsessed enough to stand in line to be the first to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, witches and wizards alike will be fascinated by the merging of this improbable realm and real science.

From the bestselling "Bridget Jones's Diary "that started the trend to the television sensation "Sex and the City "that captured it on screen, "chick lit" has become a major pop culture phenomenon. Banking on female audiences' identification with single, urban characters who struggle with the same life challenges, publishers have earned millions and even created separate imprints dedicated to the genre. Not surprisingly, some highbrow critics have dismissed chick lit as trashy fiction, but fans have argued that it is as empowering as it is entertaining.
This is the first volume of its kind to examine the chick lit phenomenon from a variety of angles, accounting for both its popularity and the intense reactions-positive and negative-it has provoked. The contributors explore the characteristics that cause readers to attach the moniker "chick" to a particular book and what, if anything, distinguishes the category of chick lit from the works of Jane Austen on one end and Harlequin romance novels on the other. They critique the genre from a range of critical perspectives, considering its conflicted relationship with feminism and postfeminism, heterosexual romance, body image, and consumerism. The fourteen original essays gathered here also explore such trends and subgenres as "Sistah Lit," "Mommy Lit," and "Chick Lit Jr.," as well as regional variations.
As the first book to consider the genre seriously," Chick Lit" offers real insight into a new generation of women's fiction.

Because she devoted much of her life to exploring the relationships that exist between people and their built environment, Edith Wharton developed a set of philosophies that she expressed in many arenas, including interior design, architecture, and landscaping. Her theories of space were practiced and materially executed, in addition to being expressed in her writing.
This book explores Wharton's theories of space in Newport, Rhode Island during the Gilded Age, when the town was transformed from a rustic seaport to a playground for the fabulously wealthy. The built environment played a pivotal role as social, economic and personal conflicts were enacted among private and public spaces. Through revisiting some of Wharton's lesser-know texts, such as The Decoration of Houses, as well as canonical novels like The House of Mirth, and close readings of Wharton's homes -- Pencraig Cottage, Land's End, and The Mount -- the book shows Wharton in a new light; as a cultural worker standing squarely in the middleof these conflicts and directly participating in them.

As he did in the Edgar(R)-nominated and Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards-winning Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, Christie expert and archivist John Curran once again examines the unpublished notebooks of the world's bestselling author to explore the techniques she used to surprise and entertain generations of readers.

Drawing on Christie's personal papers and letters, he reveals how more than twenty of her novels, as well as stage scripts, short stories, and some more personal items, evolved. Here are wonderful gems, including Christie's essay on her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, written for a British national newspaper in the 1930s; a previously unseen version of a "Miss Marple" short story; and a courtroom chapter from her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was edited out of the published version in 1920; plus an insightful, well-reasoned analysis of her final unfinished novel, based on the author's notes and Curran's own deep knowledge of Christie and her work.

A must-read for every Christie aficionado, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making is a fascinating look into the mind and craft of one of the world's most prolific and beloved authors.

In the moral vacuum and world of shifting values following World War I, Aldous Huxley was both a sensitive reflector and an articulate catalyst. This work provides a highly illuminating analysis of Huxley's evolution from skeptic to mystic. As Milton Birnbaum shows, in a perceptive interpretation of Huxley's poetry, fiction, essays and biographies--what evolved in Huxley's moral and intellectual pilgrimage was not so much a change in direction as a shift in emphasis. Even in the sardonic Huxley of the 1920s and 1930s, there is a moral concern. In the later Huxley, there are traces of the satirical skepticism which delighted his readers in the decades preceding World War II.

A man of letters, a keen observer, seeker of new ways while profoundly knowledgeable in the truths of ancient wisdom, Huxley tried to achieve a symbiotic synthesis of the best of all worlds. In clarifying and interpreting Huxley's intellectual, moral, and philosophical development, Birnbaum touches upon all the subjects that came under the scrutiny of a singularly encyclopedic mind.

This book is of great worth to those interested both in Huxley the brilliant satirist and in Huxley the seeker of salvation. In his search, Huxley typified the modern quest for values. Milton Birnbaum's study is an invaluable guide in that journey. His new introduction takes account of research and analysis of Huxley that has occurred since this book's original publication.

Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in Dubliners show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur theologians, struggling musicians, moony adolescents, victims of domestic brutishness, sentimental aunts and poets, patriots earnest or cynical, and people striving to get by. In every sense an international figure, Joyce was faithful to his own country by seeing it unflinchingly and challenging every precedent and piety in Irish literature.

This book provides a wide-ranging discussion of realism, postmodernism, literary theory and popular fiction before focusing on the careers of four prominent novelists. Despite wildly contrasting ambitions and agendas, all four grow progressively more sympathetic to the expectations of a mainstream literary audience, noting the increasingly neglected yet archetypal need for strong explanatory narrative even while remaining wary of its limitations, presumptions, and potential abuses. Exploring novels that manage to bridge the gap between accessible storytelling and literary theory, this book shows how contemporary authors reconcile values of posmodern literary experimentation and traditional realism.

Through a careful examination of the work of the canonical nineteenth-century novelists, Mike Davis traces conspiracies and conspiratorial fantasy from one narrative site to another.

Exam board: AQA & Edexcel Level: AS/A-level Subject: Modern Languages First Teaching: September 2016 First Exam: June 2017 Literature analysis made easy. Build your students' confidence in their language abilities and help them develop the skills needed to critique their chosen work: putting it into context, understanding the themes and narrative technique, as well as specialist terminology. Breaking down each scene, character and theme in Cronica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold), this accessible guide will enable your students to understand the historical and social context of the novel and give them the critical and language skills needed to write a successful essay. - Strengthen language skills with relevant grammar, vocab and writing exercises throughout - Aim for top marks by building a bank of textual examples and quotes to enhance exam response - Build confidence with knowledge-check questions at the end of every chapter - Revise effectively with pages of essential vocabulary and key mind maps throughout - Feel prepared for exams with advice on how to write an essay, plus sample essay questions, two levels of model answers and examiner commentary

A tragic tale of cruel fates, touching on rape, illegitimate birth and murder, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891) shocked its early audiences, but has proved to be one of the most enduring and influential works of English literature. This sourcebook offers an introduction to Thomas Hardy's crucial novel, offering:
*A contextual overview, a chronology and reprinted contemporary documents, including a selection of Hardy's poems
*An overview of the book's early reception and recent critical fortunes, as well as a wide range of reprinted extracts from critical works
Key passages from the novel, reprinted with editorial comment and cross-referenced within the volume to bring contextual and critical issues to bear on the reader's own interpretation of the text
*Suggestions for further reading and a list of relevant web resources.
For students on a wide range of courses, this sourcebook offers the essential stepping-stone from a basic reading knowledge to an advanced understanding of Hardy's best-known novel.

This volume offers the first comprehensive treatment of how the five canonical Greek novels represent slaves and slavery. In each novel, one or both elite protagonists are enslaved, and Owens explores the significance of the genre's regular social degradation of these members of the elite. Reading the novels in the context of social attitudes and stereotypes about slaves, Owens argues for an ideological division within the genre: the earlier novelists, Xenophon of Ephesus and Chariton, challenge and undermine elite stereotypes; the three later novelists, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus, affirm them. The critique of elite thinking about slavery in Xenophon and Chariton opens the possibility that these earlier authors and their readers included literate ex-slaves. The interests and needs of these authors and their readers shaped the emerging genre and not only made the protagonists' slavery a key motif but also made slavery itself a theme that helped define the genre. The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel will be of interest not only to students of the ancient novel but also to anyone working on slavery in the ancient world.

This pioneering collection brings together Suzanne Keen's extensive body of work on empathy and reading, charting the development of narrative empathy as an area of inquiry in its own right and extending cross-disciplinary conversations about empathy evoked by reading. Ambitious in scope, this book brings different strands of the author's research into conversation with existing debates, with the aim of inspiring future interdisciplinary research on narrative empathy.

The main aim of detective stories is to entertain, but the best cast a light on human behaviour, and display both literary ambition and accomplishment. Even unpretentious detective stories, written for unashamedly commercial reasons, can give us clues to the past, and give us insight into a long-vanished world that, for all its imperfections, continues to fascinate. This book, written by award-winning crime writer and president of the Detection Club, Martin Edwards, serves as a companion to the British Library's internationally acclaimed series of Crime Classics. Long-forgotten stories republished in the series have won a devoted new readership, with several titles entering the bestseller charts and sales outstripping those of highly acclaimed contemporary thrillers.

Series Information:
Routedge Literary Sourcebooks

York Notes Advanced offer a fresh and accessible approach to English Literature. This market-leading series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced intorduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

Examining four of Lee Smith's mountain novels from the point of view of cultural anthropology, this study shows that fragments of the Cherokee heritage resonate in her work. These elements include connections with the Cherokee beliefs regarding medicinal plants and spirit animals, Cherokee stories about the Daughter of the Sun, the Corn Woman, the Spear Finger, the Raven Mocker, the Little People and the booger men; the Cherokee concept of witchcraft; and the social position of Cherokee women.