Finalist for the 2022 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies From the time of Charles Dickens, the imaginative power of the city of London has frequently inspired writers to their most creative flights of fantasy. Charting a new history of London fantasy writing from the Victorian era to the 21st century, Fairy Tales of London explores a powerful tradition of urban fantasy distinct from the rural tales of writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien. Hadas Elber-Aviram traces this urban tradition from Dickens, through the scientific romances of H.G. Wells, the anti-fantasies of George Orwell and Mervyn Peake to contemporary science fiction and fantasy writers such as Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman and China Mieville.

What do the novelists Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte M. Yonge, Rose Macaulay, Dorothy L. Sayers, Barbara Pym, Iris Murdoch and P.D. James all have in common? These women, and others, were inspired to write fiction through their relationship with the Church of England. This field-defining collection of essays explores Anglicanism through their fiction and their fiction through their Anglicanism. These essays, by a set of distinguished contributors, cover a range of literary genres, from life-writing and whodunnits through social comedy, children's books and supernatural fiction. Spanning writers from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, they testify both to the developments in Anglicanism over the past two centuries and the changing roles of women within the Church of England and wider society.

Key Features: * Study methods * Introduction to the text * Summaries with critical notes * Themes and techniques * Textual analysis of key passages * Author biography * Historical and literary background * Modern and historical critical approaches * Chronology * Glossary of literary terms

Exploring a topic at the intersection of science, philosophy and literature in the late eighteenth century Dahlia Porter traces the history of induction as a writerly practice - as a procedure for manipulating textual evidence by selective quotation - from its roots in Francis Bacon's experimental philosophy to its pervasiveness across Enlightenment moral philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, and literature itself. Porter brings this history to bear on an omnipresent feature of Romantic-era literature, its mixtures of verse and prose. Combining analyses of printed books and manuscripts with recent scholarship in the history of science, she elucidates the compositional practices and formal dilemmas of Erasmus Darwin, Robert Southey, Charlotte Smith, Maria Edgeworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In doing so she re-examines the relationship between Romantic literature and eighteenth-century empiricist science, philosophy, and forms of art and explores how Romantic writers engaged with the ideas of Enlightenment empiricism in their work.

Authorship's Wake examines the aftermath of the 1960s critique of the author, epitomized by Roland Barthes's essay, "The Death of the Author." This critique has given rise to a body of writing that confounds generic distinctions separating the literary and the theoretical. Its archive consists of texts by writers who either directly participated in this critique, as Barthes did, or whose intellectual formation took place in its immediate aftermath. These writers include some who are known primarily as theorists (Judith Butler), others known primarily as novelists (Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace), and yet others whose texts are difficult to categorize (the autofiction of Chris Kraus, Sheila Heti, and Ben Lerner; the autotheory of Maggie Nelson). These writers share not only a central motivating question - how to move beyond the critique of the author-subject - but also a way of answering it: by writing texts that merge theoretical concerns with literary discourse. Authorship's Wake traces the responses their work offers in relation to four themes: communication, intention, agency, and labor.

Plants are silent, still, or move slowly; we do not have the sense that they accompany us, or even perceive us. But is there something that plants are telling us? Is there something about how they live and connect, how they relate to the world and other plants that can teach us about ecological thinking, about ethics and politics? Grounded in Thoreau's ecology and in contemporary plant studies, Dispersion: Thoreau and Vegetal Thought offers answers to those questions by pondering such concepts as co-dependence, the continuity of life forms, relationality, cohabitation, porousness, fragility, the openness of beings to incessant modification by other beings and phenomena, patience, waiting, slowness and receptivity.

Jane Austen collected her childhood writings into three manuscript notebooks, both as a record of her earliest work and for the convenience of reading aloud to her family and friends. Volume the First (as she entitled it) contains fourteen pieces - literary skits and family jokes - dating from about 1787, when she was eleven, to 1793. Amusing in themselves, they give us a direct picture of the lively literary and family milieu in which the novelist's juvenilia was formed. This new edtion carries a Foreword by Lord David Cecil, a former president of the Jane Austen Society and Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. There is also a Publisher's Preface by Brian Southam, author of Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts and other works on Jane Austen.

Representative of a unique literary genre and composed in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Icelandic Family Sagas rank among some of the world's greatest literature. Here, Heather O'Donoghue skilfully examines the notions of time and the singular textual voice of the Sagas, offering a fresh perspective on the foundational texts of Old Norse and medieval Icelandic heritage. With a conspicuous absence of giants, dragons, and fairy tale magic, these sagas reflect a real-world society in transition, grappling with major new challenges of identity and development. As this book reveals, the stance of the narrator and the role of time - from the representation of external time passing to the audience's experience of moving through a narrative - are crucial to these stories. As such, Narrative in the Icelandic Family Saga draws on modern narratological theory to explore the ways in which saga authors maintain the urgency and complexity of their material, handle the narrative and chronological line, and offer perceptive insights into saga society. In doing so, O'Donoghue presents a new poetics of family sagas and redefines the literary rhetoric of saga narratives.

Winner of the DHLSNA Biennial Award for a Book by a Newly Published Scholar Exploring draft manuscripts, alternative texts and publishers' typescripts, The Many Drafts of D. H. Lawrence reveals new insights into the writings and writing practices of one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Focusing on the most productive years of Lawrence's writing life, between 1909 and 1926 - a time that saw the writing of major novels such as Women in Love and the controversial The Plumed Serpent, as well as his first major short story collection - this book is the first to apply analytical methods from the field of genetic criticism to the archives of this canonical modernist author. The book unearths and re-evaluates a variety of themes including the body, death, love, trauma, depression, memory, the sublime, selfhood, and endings, and includes original transcriptions as well as reproductions from the manuscripts themselves. By charting Lawrence's writing processes, the book also highlights how the very distinction between 'process' and 'product' became a central theme in his work.

This work analyzes 21st-century realistic speculations of human extinction: fictions that imagine future worlds without interventions of as-yet uninvented technology, interplanetary travel, or other science fiction elements that provide hope for rescue or long-term survival. Climate change fiction as a genre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic writing usually resists facing the potentiality of human species extinction, following instead traditional generic conventions that imagine primitivist communities of human survivors with the means of escaping the consequences of global climate change. Yet amidst the ongoing sixth great extinction, works that problematize survival, provide no opportunities for social rebirth, and speculate humanity's final end may address the problem of how to reject the impulse of human exceptionalism that pervades climate change discourse and post-apocalyptic fiction. Rather than following the preferences of the genre, the ecocollapse fictions examined here manifest apocalypse where the means for a happy ending no longer exists. In these texts, diminished ecosystems, specters of cannibalism, and disintegrations of difference and othering render human self-identity as radically malleable within their confrontations with the stark materiality of all life. This book is the first in-depth exploration of contemporary fictions that imagine the imbrication of human and nonhuman within global species extinctions. It closely interrogates novels from authors like Peter Heller, Cormac McCarthy and Yann Martel that reject the impulse of human exceptionalism to demonstrate what it might be like to go extinct.

The world's greatest mystery writers on the world's greatest mystery novels:

Michael Connelly on "The Little Sister ." . .

Kathy Reichs on "The Silence of the Lambs . . ."

Mark Billingham on "The Maltese Falcon . . ."

Ian Rankin on "I Was Dora Suarez . . ."

With so many mystery novels to choose among, and so many new titles appearing each year, where should a reader start? What are the classics of the genre? Which are the hidden gems?

In the most ambitious anthology of its kind yet attempted, the world's leading mystery writers have come together to champion the greatest mystery novels ever written. In a series of personal essays that often reveal as much about the authors and their own work as they do about the books that they love, 119 authors from 20 countries have created a guide that will be indispensable for generations of readers and writers. From Agatha Christie to Lee Child, from Edgar Allan Poe to P. D. James, from Sherlock Holmes to Hannibal Lecter and Philip Marlowe to Lord Peter Wimsey, "Books to Die For "brings together the cream of the mystery world for a feast of reading pleasure, a treasure trove for those new to the genre and for those who believe that there is nothing new left to discover. This is the one essential book for every reader who has ever finished a mystery novel and thought . . .

"I want more "

"*** "

"Why does the mystery novel enjoy such enduring appeal? There is no simple answer. It has a distinctive capacity for subtle social commentary, a concern with the disparity between law and justice, and a passion for order, however compromised. Even in the vision of the darkest of mystery writers, it provides us with a glimpse of the world as it might be, a world in which good men and women do not stand idly by and allow the worst aspects of human nature to triumph without opposition. It can touch upon all these facets while still entertaining the reader."

--From the introduction of "Books to Die For"

Rooms of Their Own travels around the world examining the unique spaces, habits and rituals in which famous writers created their most notable works. The perennial question asked of all authors is, 'How do you write?'. What do they require of their room or desk? Do they have favourite pens, paper or typewriters? And have they found the perfect daily routine to channel their creativity? Crossing centuries, continents and genres, Alex Johnson has pooled 50 of the best writers and transports you to the heart of their writing rooms - from attics and studies to billiard rooms and bathtubs. Discover the ins and outs of how each great writer penned their famous texts, and the routines and habits they perfected. Meet authors who rely on silence and seclusion and those who need people, music and whisky. Meet novelists who travel half-way across the world to a luxury writing retreat, and others who just need an empty shed at the bottom of the garden. Some are particular about pencils, inks, paper and typewriters, and some will scribble on anything - including the furniture. But whether they write in the library or in cars, under trees, private islands, hotel rooms or towers - each of these stories confirms that there is no 'best way' to write. From James Baldwin, writing in the small hours of the morning in his Paris apartment, to DH Lawrence writing at the foot of a towering Ponderosa pine tree, to the Bronte sisters managing in a crowded co-working space, this book takes us into the lives of some of history's greatest ever writers, with each writing space illustrated in evocative watercolour by James Oses. In looking at the working lives of our favourite authors, bibliophiles will be transported to other worlds, aspiring writers will find inspiration and literature fans will gain deeper insight into their most-loved authors.

It's the countdown to Christmas at Hedgehog Hollow Wildlife Rescue Centre, and everyone is gearing up for a festive season to remember...It should be the most wonderful time of the year for Samantha and Josh as they prepare for the arrival of their first baby. But life at Hedgehog Hollow rarely goes to plan and the pair are faced with adversaries, old and new, and unexpected challenges to overcome. Fizz's job at the heart of the rescue centre is a dream come true but her personal life is more like a nightmare. With her love life a disaster and her past about to dramatically catch up with her, she needs the love and support of her Hedgehog Hollow family more than ever. As the snow falls over Hedgehog Hollow, will Samantha and Fizz find the Christmas miracle they need to overcome their heartache and find happiness? Top 10 bestseller Jessica Redland welcomes you back to Hedgehog Hollow this Christmas for the final time in this series for a heartfelt story of love, family, friendship - and hedgehogs of course! Praise for the Hedgehog Hollow series: 'I loved my trip to Hedgehog Hollow. An emotional read, full of twists and turns' Heidi Swain 'The Hedgehog Hollow series is a tonic I'd recommend for everyone. There is so much to make you smile in Jessica's stories and they are always uplifting reads, which will make you really glad you decided to pick up a copy.' Jo Bartlett 'A beautifully written series that offers the ultimate in heartwarming escapism.' Samantha Tonge 'Hedgehog Hollow is a wonderful series that has found a special place all of its own deep in the hearts of readers, including mine.' Jennifer Bohnet 'An emotional, romantic and ultimately uplifting read. Jessica always touches my heart with her sensitive handling of difficult subjects. The gorgeous community she has built around Hedgehog Hollow is one I hope to visit again and again.' Sarah Bennett 'A warm hug of a book. I never wanted to leave Hedgehog Hollow. Very highly recommended.' Della Galton 'A wonderful, warm series full of family, friends and romance.' Katie Ginger 'Jessica Redland writes from the heart, with heart, about heart' Nicola May 'An emotional but uplifting page turner.' Fay Keenan

Author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem is one of the most celebrated and significant American writers working today. This new scholarly study draws on a deep knowledge of all Lethem's work to explore the range of his writing, from his award-winning fiction to his work in comics and criticism. Reading Lethem in relation to five themes crucial to his work, Joseph Brooker considers influence and intertextuality; the role of genres such as crime, science fiction and the Western; the imaginative production of worlds; superheroes and comic book traditions; and the representation of New York City. Close readings of Lethem's fiction are contextualized by reference to broader conceptual and comparative frames, as well as to Lethem's own voluminous non-fictional writing and his adaptation of precursors from Franz Kafka to Raymond Chandler. Rich in critical insight, Jonathan Lethem and the Galaxy of Writing demonstrates how an understanding of this author illuminates contemporary literature and culture at large.

Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat is one of the most recognized writers today. Her debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was an Oprah Book Club selection, and works such as Krik? Krak! and Brother, I'm Dying have earned her a MacArthur ""genius"" grant and National Book Award nominations. Yet despite international acclaim and the relevance of her writings to postcolonial, feminist, Caribbean, African diaspora, Haitian, literary, and global studies, Danticat's work has not been the subject of a full-length interpretive literary analysis until now. In Edwidge Danticat: The Haitian Diasporic Imaginary, Nadege T. Clitandre offers a comprehensive analysis of Danticat's exploration of the dialogic relationship between nation and diaspora. Clitandre argues that Danticat-moving between novels, short stories, and essays-articulates a diasporic consciousness that acts as a form of social, political, and cultural transformation at the local and global level. Using the echo trope to approach Danticat's narratives and subjects, Clitandre effectively navigates between the reality of diaspora and imaginative opportunities that diasporas produce. Ultimately, Clitandre calls for a reconstitution of nation through a diasporic imaginary that informs the way people who have experienced displacement view the world and imagine a more diverse, interconnected, and just future.

Studies of the writing of Herman Melville are often divided among those that address his political, historical, or biographical dimensions and those that offer creative theoretical readings of his texts. In Herman Melville and the Politics of the Inhuman, Michael Jonik offers a series of nuanced and ambitious philosophical readings of Melville that unite these varied approaches. Through a careful reconstruction of Melville's interaction with philosophy, Jonik argues that Melville develops a notion of the 'inhuman' after Spinoza's radically non-anthropocentric and relational thought. Melville's own political philosophy, in turn, actively disassembles differences between humans and nonhumans, and the animate and inanimate. Jonik has us rethink not only how we read Melville, but also how we understand our deeply inhuman condition.

The New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield associated intimately with many members of the Bloomsbury group, but her literary aesthetics placed her at a distance from the artistic works of the group. With chapters written by leading international scholars, Katherine Mansfield and the Bloomsbury Group explores this conflicted relationship. Bringing together biographical and critical studies, the book examines Mansfield's relationships - personal and literary - with such major Modernist figures as Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and Walter de la Mare as well as the ways in which her work engaged with and reacted against Bloomsbury. In this way the book reveals the true extent of Mansfield's wider influence on 20th-century modernist writing.