Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

First published in 1979, Irish Identity and the Literary Revival, through the works of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, J. M. Synge, and Sean O'Casey, documents the complex spectrum of political, social and other pressures that helped fashion modern Ireland. At least three sets of cultural assumptions coexisted in Ireland during the years between 1890 and 1930, -- English, Irish and Anglo-Irish, each united by a common language but divided by considerable tensions and strain. The question of Irish identity forms the central theme of the study, and illustrates how it was a major, even obsessive concern for these writers. Subsidiary and interwoven themes constantly recur. Themes such as the concepts of the peasant and the hero, political nationalism, the meaning of Ireland's history and the validity of her cultural traditions. Rather than use the literature concerned as merely endorsing evidence for a sociological or political thesis, this study allows its major themes and issues to emerge and develop from direct and close study of the work of the writers. This book will be of interest to students of literature and history.

Originally published in 1957, The Unservile State looks at the theme of liberty in the Welfare State. Has it survived Welfare - is it even better for it? What of Parliament and our civil liberties? Does the present state of property distribution, of industry, agriculture and our social services satisfy the Liberal mind? And what would a liberal policy for foreign and Commonwealth affairs be like? These are some of the questions which this book sets out to answer. It is the first full scale study of the attitudes and policies of contemporary British Liberalism.

Originally published in 1957, The Unservile State looks at the theme of liberty in the Welfare State. Has it survived Welfare - is it even better for it? What of Parliament and our civil liberties? Does the present state of property distribution, of industry, agriculture and our social services satisfy the Liberal mind? And what would a liberal policy for foreign and Commonwealth affairs be like? These are some of the questions which this book sets out to answer. It is the first full scale study of the attitudes and policies of contemporary British Liberalism.

As George Watson playfully observes, the story is the best thing about a novel. The deliberately ambiguous title of his book reflects the fact that it combines a study of the art of narrative with the history of the novel as a literary form, since its emergence some three centuries ago. Employing a thematic approach, the author moves from one aspect of narrative to another rather than discussing novelists chronologically. The book considers various kinds of novels, such as the memoir novel and discusses issues such as the presentation of dialogue, the creation of scenes, tense and time and the relationship between the novel and history. Arguments are illustrated by well-known rather than obscure works, or novels likely to be familiar to students who take this book as a starting-point for the modern study of narrative. The reader is presented with a clear picture of how the novel has evolved and how its chief conventions have developed and changed since the seventeenth century. This new and revised edition brings back to life this invaluable and straightforward work on the technique of the novel, which first appeared in 1979.

First published in 1966. Despite the intense interest in Coleridge in the twentieth century, this book represents the first study of Coleridge's poetry to be published in Britain. It is also the first to be based upon the conclusion that Coleridge's greatness as a poet is a matter of achievement rather than aspiration and to argue that his literary career was nearly half a century long, consisting of more than just well-known texts like The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. The author argues the formality of the romantic achievement and its success in creating whole and fully realised poems in the established literary kinds.

First published in 1966. Despite the intense interest in Coleridge in the twentieth century, this book represents the first study of Coleridge's poetry to be published in Britain. It is also the first to be based upon the conclusion that Coleridge's greatness as a poet is a matter of achievement rather than aspiration and to argue that his literary career was nearly half a century long, consisting of more than just well-known texts like The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. The author argues the formality of the romantic achievement and its success in creating whole and fully realised poems in the established literary kinds.

The English ideology is parliamentary. In this study, which first appeared in 1973, George Watson shows how literary evidence, much of it fictional, can illuminate the life of a great institution like the British parliament. The book contains chapters on political oratory and the parliamentary novel ' that uniquely Victorian form ' which Disraeli created and in which Trollope excelled. It is the first comprehensive attempt to use literary evidence to expose the politics of a whole age. It expounds nineteenth century controversies over democracy, class, race, morality and empire ' a study of political language in the era when modern politics was born.

In this enjoyably iconoclastic book, George Watson discusses some of the great heresies of the twentieth century, and the cultural heretics who espoused them, often with surprising results. Watson provides us with examples of 'true', original heretics, many of whom he has met and taught: from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who asserted that his study of the remote past had made a radical of him, rather than any influence of modernism, to Douglas Adams, whom Watson knew as an undergraduate. Watson forces us to question various long-cherished political and intellectual assumptions in his witty and conversational style. Is snobbery really such a bad thing? Have we ignored the links between socialism and genocide? He touches entertainingly upon subjects as diverse as literary theory (experimental fiction is often the last resort of those who have nothing to say), and the unoriginal conformism of teenage Marxists (incapable of actually reading Marx, as he is too boring). This is a work which will delight any reader seeking a uniquely personal perspective on the culture, history, and personalities of the twentieth century.

'Critical theorists in our time sought foundations of knowledge because they knew there were none to be found, and critical scepticism became a convenient way of burying evidence and saving face. By now, however, no one is interested, the audience has gone home, and the case for studying literature needs to begin again. It cannot start too soon.' In 'Take Back the Past', George Watson examines the reasons and motives for the failure of critical theory. Why, he asks, is it more fashionable to look knowing than to know? Why did literature destroy its own case? The book shows how the collapse of socialism in the late twentieth century and how the exposure of its unique responsibility for genocide panicked the prophets of advanced thought into the denial of knowledge itself. It is a story of betrayal and deceit - achieved, like a conjurer's trick, by the suppression of evidence. The Author: George Watson is Fellow in English at St John's College, Cambridge, and editor of the 'New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'. He has published extensively on literature and political thought, including 'The Lost Literature of Socialism', 'Never Ones for Theory', and 'The English Ideology'.