An original study of John Fowles, combining a clear overview of his work with detailed critical readings and new and challenging theoretical perspectives. This original study divides John Fowles's work into three chronological phases, making sense of his development as a novelist, essayist and thinker. As well as discussing Fowles in the light of his literary predecessors such as Hardy, Defoe and Scott, William Stephenson examines the key biographical influences on Fowles's writing, including his travels abroad and his experience of the natural world. Through an examination of Fowles's commitment to individualism and his complex fictional treatments of sexuality, Stephenson challenges current critical readings that situate his work in a canon of postmodern fiction or that question his declared feminism. The study breaks new ground by exploring the hitherto overlooked role of ethnicity in Fowles's novels, and his idiosyncratic treatment of the past in The French Lieutenant's Woman and A Maggot. non-fiction, it combines the broad sweep of an overview with close readings and theoretical interpretations of some of the most rewarding passages in the work of this important storyteller and philosopher.

In this illuminating and lucid study, Deborah Parsons examines the psychological and stylistic aspects of Djuna Barnes's work within the social, cultural and aesthetic context of the modernist period. Djuna Barnes once described herself as one of the most famous unknowns of the century. Revisionary accounts of female modernist writers have reawakened interest in her work, yet she remains a unique and idiosyncratic figure, unassimilated by models of American expatriate or Sapphic modernism. In this illuminating and lucid study, Deborah Parsons examines the range of Barnes's oeuvre; her early journalism, short stories and one act dramas, poetry, the family chronicle Ryder, the Ladies Almanack, and her late play The Antiphon, as well as her modernist classic Nightwood. She explores the psychological and stylistic aspect of Barnes's work through close analysis of the texts within their social, cultural and aesthetic context, and provides an indispensable and enriching guide to Barnes's artistic identity and poetic vision. Barnes's determined inversion of generic, social, sexology, degeneration, ethnography and decadence, her unusual childhood, her professional friendships with T.S.Eliot and James Joyce, and her controversial lesbianism are all highlighted and discussed in this introduction to a bold and enigmatic writer.

This book introduces students to the Victorian novel and its contexts, teaching strategies for reading and researching nineteenth-century literature. Combining close reading with background information and analysis it considers the Victorian novel as a product of the industrial age by focusing on popular texts including Dickens's Oliver Twist, Gaskell's North and South and Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Victorian Novel in Context examines the changing readership resulting from the growth of mass literacy and the effect that this had on the form of the novel. Taking texts from the early, mid and late Victorian period it encourages students to consider how serialization shaped the nineteenth-century novel. It highlights the importance of politics, religion and the evolutionary debate in 'classic' Victorian texts. Addressing key concerns including realist writing, literature and imperialism, urbanization and women's writing, it introduces students to a variety of the most important critical approaches to the novels. Introducing texts, contexts and criticism, this is a lively and up-to-date resource for anyone studying the Victorian novel.

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.

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.

This comprehensive overview of Julia Alvarez's fiction, nonfiction, and poetry offers biographical information and parses the author's important works and the intentions behind them. Reading Julia Alvarez reviews the author's acclaimed body of writing, exploring both the works and the woman behind them. The guide opens with a brief biography that includes the saga of the Alvarez family's flight from the Dominican Republic when Julia was ten, and carries her story through the philanthropic organic coffee farm that she and her husband now operate in that nation. The heart of the book is a broad overview of Alvarez's literary achievements, followed by chapters that discuss individual works and a chapter on her poetry. The book also looks at how the author's writings grapple with and illuminate contemporary issues, and at Alvarez's place in pop culture, including an examination of film adaptations of her books. Through this guide, readers will better understand the relevance of Alvarez's works to their own lives and to new ways of thinking about current events. Chapters on individual works to help the user understand the author's plots, themes, settings, characters, and style Discussion questions in each chapter to foster student research and facilitate book-club discussion Sidebars of interesting information An up-to-date guide to Internet and print resources for further study

Designed to meet the requirements for students at GCSE and A level, this accessible educational edition offers the complete text of Never Let Me Go with a comprehensive study guide. Intended for individual study as well as class use, Geoff Barton's guide: - clearly introduces the context of the novel and its author; - examines in detail its themes, characters and structure; - looks at the novel in the author's own words, and at different critical receptions; - provides glossaries and test questions to prompt deeper thinking. In one of the most memorable novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at a seemingly idyllic school, Hailsham, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity investigates the predominant perception of liminality-identity situated at a threshold, neither one thing nor another, but simultaneously both and neither-caused by encounters with otherness while negotiating identity in contemporary Spain. Examining how identity and alterity are parleyed through the cultural concerns of historical memory, gender roles, sex, religion, nationalism, and immigration, this study demonstrates how fictional representations of reality converge in a common structure wherein the end is not the end, but rather an edge, a liminal ground. On the border between two identities, the end materializes as an ephemeral limit that delineates and differentiates, yet also adjoins and approximates. In exploring the ends of Spanish fiction-both their structure and their intentionality-Liminal Fiction maps the edge as a constitutive component of narrative and identity in texts by Najat El Hachmi, Cristina Fernandez Cubas, Javier Marias, Rosa Montero, and Manuel Rivas. In their representation of identity on the edge, these fictions enact and embody the liminal not as simply a transitional and transient mode but as the structuring principle of identification in contemporary Spain.

A rich trove of letters from Edith Wharton to her governess, written over the course of their long and affectionate friendship An exciting archive came to auction in 2009: the papers and personal effects of Anna Catherine Bahlmann (1849-1916), a governess and companion to several prominent American families. Among the collection were one hundred thirty-five letters from her most famous pupil, Edith Newbold Jones, later the great American novelist Edith Wharton. Remarkably, until now, just three letters from Wharton's childhood and early adulthood were thought to survive. Bahlmann, who would become Wharton's literary secretary and confidante, emerges in the letters as a seminal influence, closely guiding her precocious young student's readings, translations, and personal writing. Taken together, these letters, written over the course of forty-two years, provide a deeply affecting portrait of mutual loyalty and influence between two women from different social classes. This correspondence reveals Wharton's maturing sensibility and vocation, and includes details of her life that will challenge long-held assumptions about her formative years. Wharton scholar Irene Goldman-Price provides a rich introduction to My Dear Governess that restores Bahlmann to her central place in Wharton's life.

The volume explores diverse aspects of French-language travel writing. Arranged chronologically by topic, the essays cover the medieval Anglo-Norman story of the Irish traveller Saint Brendan's fantastical visit to hell; the sixteenth-century French expeditions to Florida; the seventeenth-century Dernieres decouvertes dans l'Amerique septentrionale de M. de la Sale mises au jour par le chevalier Tonti, 1697; the eighteenth-century Histoire generale des voyages by l'abbe Prevost; the eighteenth-century Impressions d' Orient et d'Arabie written in French by the Polish count Waclaw Seweryn Rzewuski; nineteenth-century tales of travel in Algeria by the orientalist painter Eugene Fromentin; early twentieth-century travel narratives by the modernist Blaise Cendrars; the 1936 visit to the Soviet Union by Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Andre Gide, odyssean thematics in the late twentieth-century work of Nobel prize winner Patrick Modiano; the thematics of nomadism in the twentieth-century writing of Albert Memmi, and the thematics of travel in works by Bernard Ollivier, Rachid Bouchareb, Fatou Diome, Christine Montalbetti, Marie Ndiaye and Emmanuel Lepage.

An original study of John Fowles, combining a clear overview of his work with detailed critical readings and new and challenging theoretical perspectives. This original study divides John Fowles's work into three chronological phases, making sense of his development as a novelist, essayist and thinker. As well as discussing Fowles in the light of his literary predecessors such as Hardy, Defoe and Scott, William Stephenson examines the key biographical influences on Fowles's writing, including his travels abroad and his experience of the natural world. Through an examination of Fowles's commitment to individualism and his complex fictional treatments of sexuality, Stephenson challenges current critical readings that situate his work in a canon of postmodern fiction or that question his declared feminism. The study breaks new ground by exploring the hitherto overlooked role of ethnicity in Fowles's novels, and his idiosyncratic treatment of the past in The French Lieutenant's Woman and A Maggot. non-fiction, it combines the broad sweep of an overview with close readings and theoretical interpretations of some of the most rewarding passages in the work of this important storyteller and philosopher.

Through the lens of science fiction, this book investigates representations of time in postmodernism. Are we living in a post-temporal age? Has history come to an end? This book argues against the widespread perception of postmodern narrativity as atemporal and a historical, claiming that postmodernity is characterized by an explosion of heterogeneous narrative 'timeshapes' or chronotopes. Chronological linearity is being challenged by quantum physics that implies temporal simultaneity; by evolutionary theory that charts multiple time-lines; and by religious and political millenarianism that espouses an apocalyptic finitude of both time and space. While science, religion, and politics have generated new narrative forms of apprehending temporality, literary incarnations can be found in the worlds of science fiction. By engaging classic science-fictional conventions, such as time travel, alternative history, and the end of the world, and by situating these conventions in their cultural context, this book offers a new and fresh perspective on the narratology and cultural significance of time.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges is undoubtedly one of the defining voices of our age. Since the Second World War, his work has had an enormous impact on generations of writers, philosophers and literary theorists. This clear and accessibly written guide offers a close reading of ten of Borges' greatest short stories, seeking to bring out the logic that has made his work so influential. The main section of the guide offers an analysis of such key terms in Borges' work as "labyrinth" and the "infinite" and analyses Borges' particular narrative strategies. This guide also sets Borges' work within its wider literary, cultural and intellectual contexts and provides an annotated guide to both scholarly and popular responses to his work to assist further reading.

Both literary author and celebrity, Bret Easton Ellis represents a type of contemporary writer who draws from both high and the low culture, using popular culture references, styles and subject matters in a literary fiction that goes beyond mere entertainment. His fiction, arousing the interest of the academia, mass media and general public, has fuelled heated controversy over his work. This controversy has often prevented serious analysis of his fiction, and this book is the first monograph to fill in this gap by offering a comprehensive textual and contextual analysis of his most important works up to the latest novel Imperial Bedrooms. Offering a study of the reception of each novel, the influence of popular, mass and consumer culture in them, and the analysis of their literary style, it takes into account the controversies surrounding the novels and the changes produced in the shifty terrain of the literary marketplace. It offers anyone studying contemporary American fiction a thorough and unique analysis of Ellis's work and his own place in the literary and cultural panorama.

This volume offers students and book club members a handy and insight-filled guide to Morrison's works and their relation to current events and popular culture. One of the few authors to attain both commercial success and literary acclaim, Toni Morrison, a longstanding member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is widely read by high school students and general readers. Her books have been adapted into highly extolled films such as Beloved, largely because, even when set in the past, they grapple with issues and emotions relevant to contemporary society. Designed for students and general readers, Reading Toni Morrison is a handy introduction to Morrison's works and their place in the world. The book begins with a look at Morrison's life and writing. Chapters overview the plots of her novels and discuss their themes, characters, and contexts. The book then examines Morrison's treatment of social issues and the presence of her works in popular culture. Chapters provide sidebars of interesting information along with questions to promote student research and book club discussion. Provides questions that can be used to generate 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 Film adaptations of the author's works, such as Beloved, are discussed and their impact explored

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.

Robert Fraser stresses the conciliating force of Ben Okri's writing and his vision of an ideal community beyond the strife-ridden present. This is the first ever full-length study of Ben Okri's life and work based on twenty years of friendship and close attention to his texts. It argues that his writing is best appreciated against the background of his early exposure to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) and his attempts since then to forge a medium of conciliation through literature. We live by stories, Okri once wrote, We also live in them. Following him from Lagos to London and from obscurity to recognition, Fraser interprets Okri's successive books as refashionings of this inner and outer narrative space by strenuous imagining and generous exhortation. Okri's fiction, essays and poems beckon us through the shabby but vibrant streets of our strife-ridden metropolis towards a potential city of justice, sincerity and peace.

York Notes for GCSE offer an exciting approach to English Literature and will help you to achieve a better grade. This market-leading series has been completely updated to reflect the needs of today's students. The new editions are packed with detailed summaries, commentaries on key themes, characters, language and style, illustrations, exam advice and much more. Written by GCSE examiners and teachers, York Notes are the authoritative guides to exam success.

David Foster Wallace is invariably seen as an emphatically American figure. Lucas Thompson challenges this consensus, arguing that Wallace's investments in various international literary traditions are central to both his artistic practice and his critique of US culture. Thompson shows how, time and again, Wallace's fiction draws on a diverse range of global texts, appropriating various forms of world literature in the attempt to craft fiction that critiques US culture from oblique and unexpected vantage points. Using a wide range of comparative case studies, and drawing on extensive archival research, Global Wallace reveals David Foster Wallace's substantial debts to such unexpected figures as Jamaica Kincaid, Julio Cortazar, Jean Rhys, Octavio Paz, Leo Tolstoy, Zbigniew Herbert, and Albert Camus, among many others. It also offers a more comprehensive account of the key influences that Wallace scholars have already perceived, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and Manuel Puig. By reassessing Wallace's body of work in relation to five broadly construed geographic territories -- Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe, France, and Africa -- the book reveals the mechanisms with which Wallace played particular literary traditions off one another, showing how he appropriated vastly different global texts within his own fiction. By expanding the geographic coordinates of Wallace's work in this way, Global Wallace reconceptualizes contemporary American fiction, as being embedded within a global exchange of texts and ideas.

Just how did Jane Austen become the celebrity author and the inspiration for generations of loyal fans she is today? Devoney Looser's The Making of Jane Austen turns to the people, performances, activism, and images that fostered Austen's early fame, laying the groundwork for the beloved author we think we know. Here are the Austen influencers, including her first English illustrator, the eccentric Ferdinand Pickering, whose sensational gothic images may be better understood through his brushes with bullying, bigamy, and an attempted matricide. The daring director-actress Rosina Filippi shaped Austen's reputation with her pioneering dramatizations, leading thousands of young women to ventriloquize Elizabeth Bennet's audacious lines before drawing room audiences. Even the supposedly staid history of Austen scholarship has its bizarre stories. The author of the first Jane Austen dissertation, student George Pellew, tragically died young, but he was believed by many, including his professor-mentor, to have come back from the dead. Looser shows how these figures and their Austen-inspired work transformed Austen's reputation, just as she profoundly shaped theirs. Through them, Looser describes the factors and influences that radically altered Austen's evolving image. Drawing from unexplored material, Looser examines how echoes of that work reverberate in our explanations of Austen's literary and cultural power. Whether you're a devoted Janeite or simply Jane-curious, The Making of Jane Austen will have you thinking about how a literary icon is made, transformed, and handed down from generation to generation.

Take Note for Exam Success! York Notes offer an exciting approach to English literature. This market leading series fully reflects student needs. They are packed with summaries, commentaries, exam advice, margin and textual features to offer a wider context to the text and encourage a critical analysis. York Notes, The Ultimate Literature Guides.

A valuable reference and collection development tool designed to assist readers' advisors in helping readers find modern "detective" mysteries they will enjoy. In this follow-up and companion to the author's previous title, Make Mine a Mystery: A Reader's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, renowned expert on the mystery and detective genre Gary Warren Niebuhr brings readers' advisors and librarians a new resource guide that categorizes and describes recently published mystery novels. Make Mine a Mystery II examines works by prominent established authors and includes books from new writers not in the previous edition. Organizing some 700 titles in popular mystery series, the books within are divided into the broader types-amateur, public, and private detective. Each of the selections within these groups is further categorized by the type of protagonist: classic, eccentric, lone wolf, police, lawyer, and so on. The author even notes whether each detective is of the "hardboiled," "softboiled" (cozy), or traditional type, enabling users to easily identify read-alikes for mystery fans. This book will be especially helpful for collection development specialists seeking to create a balanced collection of titles. Covers authors that represent best contributors to the mystery series fiction genre Provides a broad bibliography of mystery series fiction Includes an index that references authors, titles, characters, settings, and locations

Although best known the world over for his masterpiece novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the antics of the would-be knight-errant and his simple squire only represent a fraction of the trials and tribulations, both in the literary world and in society at large, of this complex man. Poet, playwright, soldier, slave, satirist, novelist, political commentator, and literary outsider, Cervantes achieved a minor miracle by becoming one of the rarest of things in the Early-Modern world of letters: an international best-seller during his lifetime, with his great novel being translated into multiple languages before his death in 1616. The principal objective of The Oxford Handbook of Cervantes is to create a resource in English that provides a fully comprehensive overview of the life, works, and influences of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616). This volume contains seven sections, exploring in depth Cervantes's life and how the trials, tribulations, and hardships endured influenced his writing. Cervantistas from numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, the United States, Canada, and France offer their expertise with the most up-to-date research and interpretations to complete this wide-ranging, but detailed, compendium of a writer not known for much other than his famous novel outside of the Spanish-speaking world. Here we explore his famous novelDon Quixote de la Mancha, his other prose works, his theatrical output, his poetry, his sources, influences, and contemporaries, and finally reception of his works over the last four hundred years.