From Longman's Cultural Edition series, this new edition of "Dracula," edited by Andrew Elfenbein, recovers the cultural complexity of Bram Stoker's novel and offers a wide array of contextualizing documents, including contemporary reviews and articles about Eastern Europe, science, gender, and media. Rather than tracing Dracula through all his later incarnations, this edition offers ways to understand the late Victorian origins of Bram Stoker's remarkable book. While "Dracula" never simply reflects contemporary trends, reading it with knowledge of contemporary events and debates can clarify what may otherwise seem puzzling. Throughout, Stoker emphasizes that his vampire story takes place not in a hazy, fictional past, but in a sharply realized England of the 1890s. The materials in the sections of Cultural Contexts illuminate the references to Victorian culture in Stoker's version of this seemingly timeless story.

Oscar Wilde
"Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray"
A Longman Cultural Edition
Editor: Andrew Elfenbein
Series Editor: Susan J. Wolfson

Affordably priced, Longman Cultural Editions present classic works in provocative and illuminating contexts-cultural, critical, and literary. Each Longman Cultural Edition consists of the complete text of a key literary work, supplemented by helpful annotations and followed by contextual materials that reveal the conversations and controversies of its historical moment.
Other Longman Cultural Editions

"NEW! The Castle of Otranto and The Man of Feeling"
Edited by Laura Mandell
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-39892-0

"NEW! Heart of Darkness, The Man Who Would Be King, "and Other Works on Empire
Edited by David Damrosch
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-36467-8

NEW! "Frankenstein," Second Edition
Edited by Susan J. Wolfson
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-39953-6

NEW! "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria"
Edited by Anne K. Mellor and Noelle Chao
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-18273-1

"Emma"
Edited by Frances Ferguson
(c) 2006 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-22504-X

"The Merchant of Venice"
Edited by Lawrence Danson
(c) 2005 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-16419-9

"King Lear"
Edited by Claire McEachern
(c) 2005 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-10722-5

"Northanger Abbey"
Edited by Marilyn Gaull
(c) 2005 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-20208-2

"Hard Times"
Edited by Jeffrey Nunokawa and Gage McWeeny
(c) 2005 - Paper - ISBN 0-321- 10721-7

"Hamlet," Second Edition
Edited by Constance Jordan
(c) 2005 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-31729-7

"Beowulf"
Edited by Sarah Anderson, Translated Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy
(c) 2004 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-10720-9

"Othello and The Tragedy of Mariam"
Edited by Clare Carroll
(c) 2003 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-09699-1

"Pride and Prejudice"
Edited by Claudia L. Johnson and Susan J. Wolfson
(c) 2003 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-10507-9

Coming Soon!
"Henry IV, Parts I & II"
Edited by Ronald Levao
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-18274-X

"John Keats"
Edited by Susan Wolfson
(c) 2007 - Paper - ISBN 0-321-23616-5

What happens to books as they live in our long-term memory? Why do we find some books entertaining and others not? And how does literary influence work on writers in different ways? Grounded in the findings of empirical psychology, this book amends classic reader-response theory and attends to neglected aspects of reading that cannot be explained by traditional literary criticism. Reading arises from a combination of two kinds of mental work: automatic and controlled processes. Automatic processes, such as the ability to see visual symbols as words, are the result of constant practice; controlled processes, such as predicting what might occur next in a story, arise from readers' conscious use of skills and background knowledge. When we read, automatic and controlled processes work together to create the "gist" of reading, the constant interplay between these two kinds of processes. Andrew Elfenbein not only explains how we read today, but also uses current knowledge about reading to consider readers of past centuries, arguing that understanding gist is central to interpreting the social, psychological, and political impact of literary works. The result is the first major revisionary account of reading practices in literary criticism since the 1970s.

What happens to books as they live in our long-term memory? Why do we find some books entertaining and others not? And how does literary influence work on writers in different ways? Grounded in the findings of empirical psychology, this book amends classic reader-response theory and attends to neglected aspects of reading that cannot be explained by traditional literary criticism. Reading arises from a combination of two kinds of mental work: automatic and controlled processes. Automatic processes, such as the ability to see visual symbols as words, are the result of constant practice; controlled processes, such as predicting what might occur next in a story, arise from readers' conscious use of skills and background knowledge. When we read, automatic and controlled processes work together to create the "gist" of reading, the constant interplay between these two kinds of processes. Andrew Elfenbein not only explains how we read today, but also uses current knowledge about reading to consider readers of past centuries, arguing that understanding gist is central to interpreting the social, psychological, and political impact of literary works. The result is the first major revisionary account of reading practices in literary criticism since the 1970s.

Named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2009
"Romanticism and the Rise of English" addresses a peculiar development in contemporary literary criticism: the disappearance of the history of the English language as a relevant topic. Elfenbein argues for a return not to older modes of criticism, but to questions about the relation between literature and language that have vanished from contemporary investigation. His book is an example of a kind of work that has often been called for but rarely realized--a social philology that takes seriously the formal and institutional forces shaping the production of English. This results not only in a history of English, but also in a recovery of major events shaping English studies as a coherent discipline. This book points to new directions in literary criticism by arguing for the need to reconceptualize authorial agency in light of a broadened understanding of linguistic history.

Named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2009
"Romanticism and the Rise of English" addresses a peculiar development in contemporary literary criticism: the disappearance of the history of the English language as a relevant topic. Elfenbein argues for a return not to older modes of criticism, but to questions about the relation between literature and language that have vanished from contemporary investigation. His book is an example of a kind of work that has often been called for but rarely realized--a social philology that takes seriously the formal and institutional forces shaping the production of English. This results not only in a history of English, but also in a recovery of major events shaping English studies as a coherent discipline. This book points to new directions in literary criticism by arguing for the need to reconceptualize authorial agency in light of a broadened understanding of linguistic history.

This book is the first full-length study of Byron's influence on Victorian writers, concentrating on Carlyle, Emily Bronte, Tennyson, Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, and Wilde. It has two emphases, theoretical and literary-historical. Its theoretical project is to revise earlier understanding of literary influence through a demonstration of the ways that institutions of cultural production mediate the access that later writers have to earlier ones. Its literary-historical project is to suggest the many different responses that Victorian writers had to Byron and to his celebrity in British culture. It argues that defining oneself against Byron became a ritual of the Victorian authorial career. Victorian writers did not reject Byron outright: instead, they defined themselves through fictions of personal development away from values associated with Byron towards those associated with themselves as mature Victorian writers.

This book is the first full-length study of Byron's influence on Victorian writers, concentrating on Carlyle, Emily Brontë, Tennyson, Bulwer-Lytton, Disraeli and Wilde. It has two emphases--to demonstrate the ways that institutions of cultural production mediate the access that later writers have to earlier ones, and to suggest the many different responses that Victorian writers had to Byron and to his celebrity in British culture. It argues that defining oneself against Byron became a ritual of the Victorian authorial career. Victorian writers did not reject Byron outright: instead, they defined themselves through fictions of personal development away from values associated with Byron toward those associated with themselves as mature Victorian writers.

Surprisingly little has been written about homosexuality in British Romantic writing, and, similarly, little discussion has emerged about homosexual themes in the lives and poetic careers of the major Romantics. In "Romantic Genius, " Andrew Elfenbein explores the correspondence between the stereotypes applied to the "genius" and those applied to the homosexual, showing the centrality of disreputable desires to the works of Romantic male authors -- from William Beckford to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Blake -- as well as to the writings of lesser-known but equally significant female authors of the period.

Surprisingly little has been written about homosexuality in British Romantic writing, and, similarly, little discussion has emerged about homosexual themes in the lives and poetic careers of the major Romantics. In "Romantic Genius, " Andrew Elfenbein explores the correspondence between the stereotypes applied to the "genius" and those applied to the homosexual, showing the centrality of disreputable desires to the works of Romantic male authors -- from William Beckford to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Blake -- as well as to the writings of lesser-known but equally significant female authors of the period.