Since the heyday of Ian Fleming's fantasy superspy James Bond, the novels of John le Carre have held up to readers across the world a sombre, fascinating picture of decline, deception and ethical ambiguity. In this study, originally published in 1986, the first to include an interpretation of A Perfect Spy, Eric Homberger argues that within the tradition of the spy thriller of John Buchan and 'Sapper' a 'space' was created by Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler and Graham Greene for serious writing. From The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) to The Little Drummer Girl (1983) and A Perfect Spy (1986), le Carre has used that space to make a searching investigation of the nature of post-Imperial Britain. In the process he has become the peer of Conrad and Greene in the recognition that the spy novel is a literary form capable of the highest artistic seriousness.

This set comprises 40 volumes covering nineteenth and twentieth century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.

Since the heyday of Ian Fleming's fantasy superspy James Bond, the novels of John le Carre have held up to readers across the world a sombre, fascinating picture of decline, deception and ethical ambiguity. In this study, originally published in 1986, the first to include an interpretation of A Perfect Spy, Eric Homberger argues that within the tradition of the spy thriller of John Buchan and 'Sapper' a 'space' was created by Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler and Graham Greene for serious writing. From The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) to The Little Drummer Girl (1983) and A Perfect Spy (1986), le Carre has used that space to make a searching investigation of the nature of post-Imperial Britain. In the process he has become the peer of Conrad and Greene in the recognition that the spy novel is a literary form capable of the highest artistic seriousness.

The "Collected Critical Heritage II" comprises 40 volumes covering 19th and 20th century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxes sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of "Critical Heritage" published by Routledge in October 1995. The "Critical Heritage" series gathers together a large body of critical figures in literature. These selected sources include contemporary reviews from both popular and literary media. This volume covers American poet, Ezra Pound.

Now in its third edition, The Historical Atlas of New York City, takes us, neighborhood by neighborhood, through four hundred years of Gotham's rich past, from the city's initial settlement of 270 people in thirty log houses; to John Jacob Astor's meteoric rise from humble fur trader to the richest, most powerful man in the city; the fascinating ethnic mixture that is modern Queens; and the new Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center. With full-color maps, charts, photographs, drawings, and mini-essays, this encyclopedic volume also traces the historical development and cultural relevance of such iconic New York thoroughfares as Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, Park Avenue, and Broadway. This fully revised and updated edition brings the Atlas up to the present, including new spreads of the One World Trade Center site. A fascinating chronicle of the life of a metropolis, the striking third edition of The Historical Atlas of New York City provides a vivid and unique perspective on the nation's cultural capital.

Glittering and glamorous, New York in the mid-nineteenth century was also plagued by political corruption, sanitation problems, and a growing gulf between rich and poor. In this book, Eric Homberger brilliantly evokes the life of a city through vivid portraits of New Yorkers struggling to reconstruct a sense of community amid the selfish materialism of their urban environment. Homberger focuses on four main characters who played important roles in various reform efforts of the period: Ann Lohman, known as "Madame Restell, the world-renowned medical expert," whose services as an abortionist were partly responsible for the creation of a harshly repressive public policy toward abortion that persisted for more than a century; "Slippery Dick" Connolly, comptroller of New York City, who escaped to Europe with millions of the city's dollars and betrayed his confederates in the Tweed Ring; Dr. Stephen Smith, a young surgeon at Bellevue Hospital, who was able to show that dozens of cases of typhus had originated in a single tenement on East 22nd Street; and Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect-in-chief of Central Park, who brought into reality a concept promoted by the aristocracy for the benefit of rich and poor alike. In the course of telling the stories of these New Yorkers, Homberger describes a host of other characters: cynical politicians employing the ever-effective language of racism, real estate speculators angrily contesting who was to reap the benefits of Central Park and who was to pay, well-meaning preachers, cunning lawyers, destitute immigrants, curious journalists, wealthy New Yorkers who anxiously feared the city's mobs, moral reformers, and many more. Wonderful reading, Homberger's book is also timely, for his account of the struggle to define and create a community within a diverse and contentious city evokes similar struggles taking place in cities today.