This volume offers critical and theoretical perspectives on some of the major figures in European drama in the 20th century. There are 13 essays, covering Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Samuel Beckett, Antonin Artaud, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Anouilh, Fernando Arrabal, Jean Genet, Peter Weiss, Vaclav Havel, contemporary German theatre, and Dario Fo and Franca Fame. These essays combine contemporary theory with a discussion of the dramatic work and theories of theatre and drama of the playwrights who created modern drama in Europe. Brian Docherty is the co-editor of "Nineteenth-Century Suspense: From Poe to Conan Doyle", and editor of "American Crime Fiction: Studies in the Genre", "American Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King", "Twentieth Century American Drama", "American Modernist Poetry", "Twentieth Century British Poetry 1900-50", Twentieth Century British Poetry 1950-90" and "The Beat Generation".

This collection looks at the developments in British poetry from the Movement until the present. The introduction not only provides a context for these changes but also argues that poetry criticism has been debilitated by the quest for political respectability, a trend which can only be reversed by reconsidering the idea of tradition. The essays themselves focus on general themes or individual authors. Written in a clear and informed manner, they provoke the reader into a fresh awareness of the nature of poetry and its relation to society.

American Drama offers a comprehensive introduction for students who require detailed but clear information on the dramatists included. It has much to offer the academic and serious reader and addresses the common concern that the unfamiliar names and forgotten voices of those who made a major contribution to the history of American drama have been unfairly neglected. A range of approaches and a wide selection of plays discussed make this volume a landmark in our appreciation and understanding of some of this century's greatest writers.

Tracing its origins back to Walt Whitman, the Modernist tradition in American poetry is driven by the same concern to engage with the world in revolutionary terms, inspired by the concept of democracy vital to the American dream. But this tradition is not confined to a few writers at the beginning of the century: instead it has been an enduring force, extending from coast to coast and of varying hues: Imagist, Objectivist, Beat. International in flavour but shaped by the language and conditions of America, this poetry continues to speak to us today. This collection of specially commissioned essays brings together leading scholars and critics to define the American Modernist canon, providing a range of perspectives helpful to all those interested in this fascinating poetry.

"Insights" brings contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural areas. Each contribution concentrates on a study of a particular work, author or genre in its artistic, historical and cultural context.;This criticism on American horror fiction 1798-1983 offers critical and theoretical perspectives. Each essay deals with a major figure in the genre from Gothic to modern feminist reworkings and aim to illustrate the fact that modern theory can usefully be applied to any text or genre.;The essays discuss the work of Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P.Lovecraft, William Faulkner, Robert Bloch, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and S.M.Charnas.

Brian Docherty grew up in Scotland in the 1960s listening to Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon on the radio, hitched across Europe in the 1970s, and then followed the Vikings west to Vinland only to find himself caught 'in the blizzard of history'. 'Woke Up This Morning' is a hitch-hiker's guide to cultural alienation, from Glasgow to London to San Francisco and back again.

In My Dreams, Again is Brian Docherty's fifth full collection of new poems, written in north London over several years. Once again, he takes the reader on a journey to places some readers might be familiar with, and some detours and side trips. His favourite locations, such as San Francisco, are on the tour itinerary, narrated in the blend of politics, social comment and black humour for which his work is noted, but there might also be a few surprises along the way. Brian Docherty is a resident alien . . . Woke up this Morning is a hitch-hiker's guide to cultural alienation and appropriation, from Glasgow to San Francisco and back. It is a book about real and imagined journeys to other worlds that always seem less alien than our own, a series of studies in estrangement and exile - Stanley Spencer in Cookham, Dracula in Whitby, Gauguin on Tahiti, Muddy Waters in Chicago. (Andy Croft, New Poetry column, Morning Star)

Independence Day moves on from previous work, while still retaining some continuities in theme, style and approach. It is a book of journeys, literal and metaphorical, making use of ekphrastic techniques. The poems here start out from north London, taking the reader to San Francisco, New York, Baku, Kuala Lumpur, France, Russia, and back again, while remaining firmly grounded in the writer's locale. As ever, political realities and social issues are not neglected; these poems move to a contemporary music without losing seriousness of purpose without resorting to agit-prop.

'Desk With A View' honours William Carlos Williams' dictum that everything is fit material for poetry. He has poems on the legacy of Socialism, meditations on nationalism, sex and love, and personal elegies.