Reading lists, course syllabi, and prizes include the phrase '21st-century American literature,' but no critical consensus exists regarding when the period began, which works typify it, how to conceptualize its aesthetic priorities, and where its geographical boundaries lie. Considerable criticism has been published on this extraordinary era, but little programmatic analysis has assessed comprehensively the literary and critical/theoretical output to help readers navigate the labyrinth of critical pathways. In addition to ensuring broad coverage of many essential texts, The Cambridge Companion to 21st Century American Fiction offers state-of-the field analyses of contemporary narrative studies that set the terms of current and future research and teaching. Individual chapters illuminate critical engagements with emergent genres and concepts, including flash fiction, speculative fiction, digital fiction, alternative temporalities, Afro-futurism, ecocriticism, transgender/queer studies, anti-carceral fiction, precarity, and post-9/11 fiction.

One of the most important novels of the eighteenth-century, Sir Charles Grandison [1753] shaped the English courtship novel, and was loved and admired by both Jane Austen and George Eliot. The book follows the life of Sir Charles, a man parallel in virtue with Richardson's female paragons Clarissa and Pamela; and a response to the fallible protagonist Tom Jones in Fielding's popular satire of moralising novels. Forming part of the first full scholarly edition of Richardson's complete works, comprehensive general and textual introductions significantly revise and advance understanding of the composition and printing history of Richardson's final novel, and reveal the central place of Sir Charles in the literature of the period. Including Richardson's Historical Index for the first time in any edition, extensive annotations and expansive notes also give readers crucial context, and provides scholars with paths to follow for future research.

An exploration of Gothic literature from its origins in Horace Walpole's 1764 classic The Castle of Otranto, through Romantic and Victorian Gothic to modernist and postmodernist takes on the form.

One of the most important Irish novelists of the twentieth century, Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) was also a pioneer of women's writing. In a career that spanned almost fifty years, nine novels, nine plays, two travelogues, and copious criticism, O'Brien rebelled against the narrow nationalism and restrictive Catholicism prevalent in independent Ireland. In this highly original approach to O'Brien's work, Davison traces the influence of three leading Spanish writers-Jacinto Benavente, Miguel de Cervantes, and Teresa of Avila. O'Brien's lifelong fascination with Spanish literature and culture offered an oblique way of resisting the Catholic and conservative imperatives of the Irish Free State. In a series of close comparative readings, Davison identifies the origin of O'Brien's creative disinhibition and ultimately situates her within a tradition of dissident Irish women writers.

How did a single genre of text have the power to standardise the English language across time and region, rival the Bible in notions of authority, and challenge our understanding of objectivity, prescription, and description? Since the first monolingual dictionary appeared in 1604, the genre has sparked evolution, innovation, devotion, plagiarism, and controversy. This comprehensive volume presents an overview of essential issues pertaining to dictionary style and content and a fresh narrative of the development of English dictionaries throughout the centuries. Essays on the regional and global nature of English lexicography (dictionary making) explore its power in standardising varieties of English and defining nations seeking independence from the British Empire: from Canada to the Caribbean. Leading scholars and lexicographers historically contextualise an array of dictionaries and pose urgent theoretical and methodological questions relating to their role as tools of standardisation, prestige, power, education, literacy, and national identity.

Contributions by Amylou Ahava, Jeff Ambrose, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Daniel P. Compora, Penny Crofts, Keith Currie, Erin Giannini, Diganta Roy, Hannah Lina Schneeberger, Shannon S. Shaw, Maria Wiegel, and Margaret J. Yankovich First published in 1986, Stephen King's novel IT forever changed the legacy of the literary clown. The subject of a TV miniseries and a two-part film adaptation and the inspiration for a resurgence of the evil clown figure in popular culture, IT's influence is undeniable, yet scholarship to date is almost exclusively devoted to the adaptations rather than the novel itself. Encountering Pennywise: Critical Perspectives on Stephen King's "IT" considers the pronounced cultural fluctuations of IT's legacies by centering the novel within the theoretical frameworks that animate it and ensure its literary and cultural persistence. The collection explores the ways the novel, so like its antagonist, replicates (or disavows) the icons of various canons and categories in order to accomplish specific psychological and cultural work. Gathering the work of scholars from diverse professional and disciplinary vantage points, editor Whitney S. May has curated an anthology that spans discussions of American surveillance culture, intergenerational conflict, the legacies of settler colonialism and Native American representation, serial-killer fanaticism, and more. In this volume, we read the protagonists' constellations of countermoves against Pennywise as productive outlines of critique effectuated by the richness of the clown's reflective power. The essays are therefore thematically arranged into a series of four categories of "counter"-countercurrents, countercultures, counterclaims, and counterfeits-where each supplies a specific critical lens through which to view Pennywise's disruptions of both culture and cultural critique.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection is both a key scientific work of research, still read by scientists, and a readable narrative that has had a cultural impact unmatched by any other scientific text. First published in 1859, it has continued to sell, to be reviewed and discussed, attacked and defended. The Origin is one of those books whose controversial reputation ensures that many who have never read it nevertheless have an opinion about it. Jim Endersby's major scholarly edition debunks some of the myths that surround Darwin's book, while providing a detailed examination of the contexts within which it was originally written, published and read. Endersby provides a very readable introduction to this classic text and a level of scholarly apparatus (explanatory notes, bibliography and appendixes) that is unmatched by any other edition.

This is the first volume of a three volume collection of the correspondence of Caroline Norton, covering the period July 1828-Deember 1837. The collection also includes an introduction and five commentaries by the editor, contextualising and embedding Caroline's literary and political achievements within the narrative of her letters.

Engagements with Contemporary Literary and Critical Theory is a wide-ranging but accessible introduction to the key thinkers and theories integral to the study of literature. Organized thematically, the book provides historical introductions and uses a variety of relevant contemporary examples to illuminate the field. Evan Gottlieb contextualizes the latest developments with regard to forms; discourses; subjectivities and embodiments; media, networks, and machines; and animals, affects, objects, and environments. Each chapter elucidates its concepts through in-depth discussions of major contemporary theorists, including Giorgio Agamben, Sara Ahmed, and Catherine Malabou, and uses engaging examples from a canonical novel, a contemporary text, and a new-media artifact to demonstrate theoretical applications. Additional text boxes regularly introduce emerging or overlooked theorists of interest, including Fred Moten and Sianne Ngai. An ideal guide for students of literary and critical theory, this book will give readers the background they need to continue their own explorations of this vibrant field of study.

A History of Canadian Fiction is the first one-volume history to chart its development from earliest times to the present day. Recounting the struggles and the glories of this burgeoning area of investigation, it explains Canada's literary growth alongside its remarkable history. Highlighting the people who have shaped and are shaping Canadian literary culture, the book examines such major figures as Mavis Gallant, Mordecai Richler, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Thomas King, concluding with young authors of today whose major successes reflect their indebtedness to their Canadian forbearers.

From the bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes this essential primer to reading poetry like a professor that unlocks the keys to enjoying works from Lord Byron to the Beatles. No literary form is as admired and feared as poetry. Admired for its lengthy pedigree-a line of poets extending back to a time before recorded history-and a ubiquitous presence in virtually all cultures, poetry is also revered for its great beauty and the powerful emotions it evokes. But the form has also instilled trepidation in its many admirers mainly because of a lack of familiarity and knowledge. Poetry demands more from readers-intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually-than other literary forms. Most of us started out loving poetry because it filled our beloved children's books from Dr. Seuss to Robert Louis Stevenson. Eventually, our reading shifted to prose and later when we encountered poetry again, we had no recent experience to make it feel familiar. But reading poetry doesn't need to be so overwhelming. In an entertaining and engaging voice, Thomas C. Foster shows readers how to overcome their fear of poetry and learn to enjoy it once more. From classic poets such as Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to later poets such as E.E. Cummings, Billy Collins, and Seamus Heaney, How to Read Poetry Like a Professor examines a wide array of poems and teaches readers: How to read a poem to understand its primary meaning. The different technical elements of poetry such as meter, diction, rhyme, line structures, length, order, regularity, and how to learn to see these elements as allies rather than adversaries. How to listen for a poem's secondary meaning by paying attention to the echoes that the language of poetry summons up. How to hear the music in poems-and the poetry in songs! With How to Read Poetry Like a Professor, readers can rediscover poetry and reap its many rewards.

How can we look afresh at Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets? What new light might they shed on his career, personality, and sexuality? Shakespeare wrote sonnets for at least thirty years, not only for himself, for professional reasons, and for those he loved, but also in his plays, as prologues, as epilogues, and as part of their poetic texture. This ground-breaking book assembles all of Shakespeare's sonnets in their probable order of composition. An inspiring introduction debunks long-established biographical myths about Shakespeare's sonnets and proposes new insights about how and why he wrote them. Explanatory notes and modern English paraphrases of every poem and dramatic extract illuminate the meaning of these sometimes challenging but always deeply rewarding witnesses to Shakespeare's inner life and professional expertise. Beautifully printed and elegantly presented, this volume will be treasured by students, scholars, and every Shakespeare enthusiast.

The first volume of this edition of Katherine Mansfield's letters, correspondents A-J, is heavily weighted towards the Beauchamp family and several of her closest friends. This second volume, quite by chance, puts the emphasis far more on Mansfield's literary and intellectual friendships especially members of the Bloomsbury group. It includes letters to Sylvia Lynd, the Hon. Bertrand Russell, Sydney and Violet Schiff, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf and Hugh Walpole, as well as those individuals who gathered around Lady Ottoline Morrell (herself the recipient of one of the largest number of letters in this volume) at Garsington Manor. With over twenty new letters not published in previous editions of her letters, as well substantial revisions and additions to a number of other letters, accompanied by thoroughly researched annotations, this volume offers many new insights into Mansfield's epistolary relationships.

Despite publishing endeavours such as the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series in the 1970s and Fantasy Masterworks in the early 2000s, the canon of modern fantasy is still very much in flux. This Element examines four key questions raised by the prospect of a fantasy canon: the way in which canon and genre influence each other; the overwhelming presence of Tolkien in any discussion of the classics of fantasy; the multi-media and transmedia nature of the field; and the push for a more inclusive and diverse canon.

When we spend so much of our time immersed in books, who's to say where reading ends and living begins? The two are impossibly and gloriously wedded, as Hill shows in Jacob's Room Is Full of Books.

Considering everything from Edith Wharton's novels through to Alan Bennett's diaries, Virginia Woolf and the writings of twelfth century monk Aelred of Rievaulx, Susan Hill charts a year of her life through the books she has read, reread or returned to the shelf. From beneath a shady tree in a hot French summer, or the warmth of a kitchen during an English winter, Hill reflects on what her reading throws up, from writing and writers to politics and religion, as well as the joy of dandies or the pleasure of watching a line of geese cross a meadow.

Full of wry observations and warm humour, as well as strong opinions freely aired, this is a rare and wonderful insight into the rich world of reading from one of the nation's most accomplished authors.

Science Fiction in Translation: Perspectives on the Global Theory and Practice of Translation focuses on the process of translation and its implications. The volume explores the translation of works of science fiction (SF) from one language to another and the translation of SF tropes, terms, and ideas of SF theory into cultures outside the West. Providing a comprehensive examination of the state of translation into English, the essays consider how representative the body of translated work of SF is from the source language/culture. It also considers the social, political, and economic choices in selecting a work to translate. The book illustrates the dramatic growth both in SF production outside the Anglosphere, the translation of works from other languages into English, and the practice of translating English-language SF into other languages. Altogether, the essays map the theory, practice, and business of SF translation around the world.

The first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated women writers in the world. In Bodily Evidence: Racism, Slavery, and Maternal Power in the Novels of Toni Morrison, Geneva Cobb Moore explores how Morrison captures and mirrors the tragedy experienced by and transformation of African Americans, using parody and pastiche, semiotics and metaphors, and allegory to portray black life in the United States, teaching untaught history to liberate Americans.In this short and accessible book, originally published as part of Moore's Maternal Metaphors of Power in African American Women's Literature, she covers each of Morrison's novels, from The Bluest Eye to Beloved to God Help the Child. With a new introduction and added coverage of Morrison's final book, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations, Bodily Evidence will be essential reading for scholars, students, and readers of Morrison's novels.

Immerse yourself in the stories behind the most shocking and infamous books ever published! Censorship of one form or another has existed almost as long as the written word, while definitions of what is deemed "acceptable" in published works have shifted over the centuries, and from culture to culture. Banned Books explores why some of the world's most important literary classics and seminal non-fiction titles were once deemed too controversial for the public to read - whether for challenging racial or sexual norms, satirizing public figures, or simply being deemed unfit for young readers. From the banning of All Quiet on the Western Front and the repeated suppression of On the Origin of the Species, to the uproar provoked by Lady Chatterley's Lover, entries offer a fascinating chronological account of censorship and the astonishing role that some banned books have played in changing history. Packed with eye-opening insights into the history of the written word and the political and social climate during the period of suppression or censorship, this is a must-read for anyone interested in literature; creative writing; politics; history or law. Delve into this compelling collection of the world's most controversial books to discover: - Covers a broad range of genres and subject areas in fiction and non-fiction, ranging from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Spycatcher - Offers informative insights into society, politics, law, and religious belief, in different countries around the world - Features images of first editions and specially commissioned illustrations of the books' authors - Includes extracts from the banned books along with key quotations about them - Completely global in scope A must-have volume for avid readers and literary scholars alike, alongside those with an interest in the law, politics and censorship, Banned Books profiles a selection of the most infamous, intriguing and controversial books ever written, whilst offering a unique perspective on the history of the written world - with insights into the often surprising reasons books have been banned throughout history and across the world. Whether as a gift or self-purchase, this brilliant book is a must-have addition to the library of curious thinkers, borrowers and lifelong learners. If you enjoy Banned Books, then why not try Great Loves - the first title in DK's quirky new hardback series, full of insightful and intriguing topics.

Hailed by book reviewers as a "masterpiece," "gorgeous and fascinating," and "sheer pleasure," Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape was published in fall 2006 in hardcover. It was met with outstanding reviews and strong sales, going into three printings. A language-lover's dream, this visionary reference revitalized a descriptive language for the American landscape by combining geography, literature, and folklore in one volume. This is a totally redesigned, near-pocket-sized field guide edition of the best-selling hardcover. Home Ground brings together 45 poets and writers to create more than 850 original definitions for words that describe our lands and waters. The writers draw from careful research and their own distinctive stylistic, personal, and regional diversity to portray in bright, precise prose the striking complexity of the landscapes we inhabit. Includes an introductory essay by Barry Lopez. At the heart of the book is a community of writers in service to their country, emphasizing a language suggesting the vastness and mystery that lie beyond our everyday words.

The Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James provides, for the first time, a scholarly edition of a major writer whose work continues to be read, quoted, adapted and studied. The nine tales in this volume, published between 1884 and 1888, include 'The Aspern Papers', set in Venice and featuring a devious scholar attempting to steal the letters of an American poet from his former lover, and 'The Liar,' on the world of painters and their models. These tales exemplify James's continuing interest in the art of short fiction during a period which saw him responding to the stimulations of French naturalism and successfully reworking the international theme that had made him famous at the end of the 1870s. Extensive explanatory notes enable modern readers to understand the tales' historical, cultural and literary references.

Gender in American Literature and Culture introduces readers to key developments in gender studies and American literary criticism. It offers nuanced readings of literary conventions and genres from early American writings to the present and moves beyond inflexible categories of masculinity and femininity that have reinforced misleading assumptions about public and private spaces, domesticity, individualism, and community. The book also demonstrates how rigid inscriptions of gender have perpetuated a legacy of violence and exclusion in the United States. Responding to a sense of 21st century cultural and political crisis, it illuminates the literary histories and cultural imaginaries that have set the stage for urgent contemporary debates.

The French Revolution ignited the biggest debate on politics and society in Britain since the Civil War 150 years earlier. The public controversy lasted from the initial, positive reaction to French events in 1789 to the outlawing of the radical societies in 1799. This Cambridge Companion highlights the energy, variety and inventiveness of the literature written in response to events in France and the political reaction at home. It contains thirteen specially commissioned essays by an international team of historians and literary scholars, a chronology of events and publications, and an extensive guide to further reading. Six essays concentrate on the principal writers of the Revolution controversy: Burke, Paine, Godwin and Wollstonecraft. Others deal with popular radical culture, counter-revolutionary culture, the distinctive contribution of women writers, novels of opinion, drama, and poetry. This volume will serve as a comprehensive yet accessible reference work for students, advanced researchers and scholars.

In 1925 William Faulkner began his professional writing career in earnest while living in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He had published a volume of poetry ("The Marble Faun"), had written a few book reviews, and had contributed sketches to the University of Mississippi student newspaper. He had served a stint in the Royal Canadian Air Corps and while working in a New Haven bookstore had become acquainted with the wife of the writer Sherwood Anderson.

In his first six months in New Orleans, where the Andersons were living, Faulkner made his initial foray into serious fiction writing. Here in one volume are the pieces he wrote while in the French Quarter. These were published locally in the "Times-Picayune" and in the "Double Dealer."

The pieces in "New Orleans Sketches" broadcast seeds that would take root in later works. In their themes and motifs these sketches and stories foreshadow the intense personal vision and style that would characterize Faulkner's mature fiction. As his sketches take on parallels with Christian liturgy and as they portray such characters as an idiot boy similar to Benjy Compson, they reveal evidence of his early literary sophistication.

In praise of "New Orleans Sketches," Alfred Kazin wrote in the "New York Times Book Review" that "the interesting thing for us now, who can see in this book the outline of the writer Faulkner was to become, is that before he had published his first novel he had already determined certain main themes in his work."

In his trail-blazing introduction, Carvel Collins often called "Faulkner's best-informed critic," illuminates the period when the sketches were written as the time that Faulkner was making the transition from poet to novelist.

"For the reader of Faulkner," Paul Engle wrote in the "Chicago Tribune," "the book is indispensable. Its brilliant introduction . . . is full both of helpful information . . . and of fine insights." "We gain something more than a glimpse of the mind of a young genius asserting his power against a partially indifferent environment," states the "Book Exchange" (London). "The long introduction . . . must rank as a major literary contribution to our knowledge of an outstanding writer: perhaps the greatest of our times."

Travel the myriad worlds of the DC Multiverse. If you want to truly understand DC Comics, The DC Book is your one-stop guide to the DC Multiverse. This unique, insightful examination of a mind-boggling comics universe takes readers on a compelling journey from the dawn of Super Heroes to the formation of the Dark Multiverse... and beyond. Meticulously researched and expertly written, The DC Book is packed with stunning comics artwork, illuminating infographics, and incisive, specially curated essays that shed new light on the ever-evolving DC Multiverse. From the world's finest Super Heroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, to iconic villains like the Joker, Lex Luthor, and Darkseid, to mythic realms like Apokolips and Themyscira, to cosmic energies like The Source and The Speed Force, The DC Book explores the key concepts, characters, and events that have defined and shaped DC Comics over the past 80 years. Divided into key subject areas, including science, magic, alternate universes, that form the foundations of DC Comics, The DC Book is an invaluable roadmap to DC Comics that no fan will want to miss! All DC characters and elements (c) & TM DC Comics. (s21)