Shakespeare's tragedies are among the greatest works of tragic art and have attracted a rich range of commentary and interpretation from leading creative and critical minds. This Reader's Guide offers a comprehensive survey of the key criticism on the tragedies, from the 17th century through to the present day. In this book, Nicolas Tredell: - Introduces essential concepts, themes and debates. - Relates Shakespeare's tragedies to fi elds of study including psychoanalysis, gender, race, ecology and philosophy. - Summarises major critical texts from Dryden and Dr Johnson to Janet Adelman and Julia Reinhard Lupton, and covers influential critical movements such as New Criticism, New Historicism and poststructuralism. - Demonstrates how key critical approaches work in practice, with close reference to Shakespeare's texts. Informed and incisive, this is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in how the category of Shakespeare's tragedies has been constructed, contested and changed over the years.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream "is an enchanting and extraordinary comedy. With its rich poetry and vigorous prose, and its combination of magic, myth, romance and humor, it ranks among Shakespeare's most popular and memorable plays. However, it has also increasingly been recognized as a profound and penetrating exploration of love, desire, gender, social hierarchy, dramatic art, imagination and vision.
In this Reader's Guide, Nicolas Tredell:
- explores the key critical responses to the play, from the late seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries
- provides succinct and searching accounts of the most vibrant commentaries and interpretations
- sets these accounts in their critical, theoretical and historical contexts.
Informed and incisive, this survey is an invaluable resource for students, teachers and all those who wish to enhance their grasp of Dream criticism and engage in the ongoing critical debates about the play.

David Copperfield and Great Expectations are among Charles Dickens's most famous novels. In both books, the hero tells the vivid and absorbing tale of his education by life, presents a rich range of characters and scenes, and tackles profound moral, social and psychological themes. Part I of this essential study: - Provides lucid and penetrating analyses of key passages - Discusses the crucial topics of patriarchy, class, obsession, eccentricity, death, breakdown and recovery - Summarizes the methods of analysis and offers suggestions for further work Part II supplies key background material, including: - An account of Dickens's life and works - A survey of historical, cultural and literary contexts - Samples of significant criticism Also featuring a valuable Further Reading section, this volume provides readers with the critical and analytical skills which will enable them to enjoy and explore both novels for themselves.

"Reader's Guides" provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works. Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts. "The Great Gatsby" (1925) is a classic of modern American literature and is often seen as the quintessential novel of 'the jazz age'. This is the ideal guide to the text, setting "The Great Gatsby" in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading.

This Guide provides a critical survey of the rich range of responses to "Macbeth," as well as the key debates and developments from the seventeenth century to the present day. Leading the reader through material chronologically, the Guide summarizes, explains and assesses key interpretations, sets them in their intellectual and historical contexts, and supplies extracts from criticism which exemplify crucial critical positions.

Now recognized as two of Faulkner's greatest novels, "The Sound and the Fury" (1929) and "As I Lay Dying" (1930) were commercial failures in the decade following their publication. By the end of the Second World War, however, the reputation of both novels had grown and Faulkner's great fictional creation, Yoknapatawpha County, had become as much a part of America as any real area of the Mississippi landscape.

This "Guide" explores the wealth of critical material generated by these two exceptional works of modernist fiction. From the initially mixed critical responses to the novels in the early 1930s, the "Guide" follows the enormous growth of interest in Faulkner's work across six decades. New writings shaped by a range of critical theories are discussed, offering the reader a clear view of the place now given to one of America's most innovative and influential novelists.

Surveying the key debates about a novel which has provoked an immensely rich critical response, the extracts and essays included here examine "Great Expectations" in structural, symbolic, social, political, psychological, and sexual terms, relating the novel to its own time and to a range of twentieth-century theoretical perspectives. Exploring secondary sources, from initial reviews in the 1860s to the most up-to-date critiques of the 1990s, the "Guide" is an essential resource for the study of one of Dickens's most complex works.

Spanning an impressive range of interpretations, the critical works in this collection analyze the complex narrative technique of "Heart Of Darkness" while exploring its evocation of myth, philosophy, and politics, its attitudes to empire, its images of Africa, and its representations of women. Examining secondary sources from the 1900s to the 1990s, this "Guide" is an indispensable resource for the study of one of Conrad's most potent works.

More critical writing exists on "The Great Gatsby" than on any other work of American fiction. This "Columbia Critical Guide" introduces and contextualizes the key critical debates surrounding Fitzgerald's novel. The extracts and essays included here reflect "The Great Gatsby"'s place as one of the first American novels to make significant use of modernist techniques and explore the influence of this "Lost Generation" work on later American writings. In considering secondary sources from the twenties to the present, this smart and sophisticated study guide offers readers an invaluable resource on this complex rendering of a moment in American history.

'One of the more earnest and interesting writers of his generation.' - "The Guardian"
'Readable to an almost hypnotic degree . . . absorbing and exciting.' - "Sphere"
'Some really good narrative . . . impressive.' - "New Statesman"
As a child, the brilliant mathematical prodigy Hugh Greene's two major influences were his eccentric old uncles, Nick and Sam. From Uncle Nick, Hugh learned a love of mathematics, which came to represent clarity and order, and from Uncle Sam he acquired an overwhelming fear of violence. Now seventeen and unsure of what to do with his life and whether life is even worth bothering with at all, Hugh finds his hatred of violence becoming even more intense when he witnesses a gang of brutal thugs beating an innocent man. Determined to protect himself, he purchases a gun and joins a pistol club. But when he becomes involved with a senseless shooting and gets mixed up with a group of criminals, including a sex murderer, Hugh will be forced to confront the question of whether his mathematics and philosophy have any relevance in a world of violence. . . .
Colin Wilson's third novel, "The World of Violence" (1963), is a fascinating and gripping story that critic Sidney Campion called 'one of the most complex and satisfying bildungsromans ever written in English.' This new edition of Wilson's brilliant novel, the first in more than twenty years, includes a new introduction by Nicolas Tredell.

"Reader's Guides" provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works. Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts. "The Great Gatsby" (1925) is a classic of modern American literature and is often seen as the quintessential novel of 'the jazz age'. This is the ideal guide to the text, setting "The Great Gatsby" in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading.

"David Copperfield" and "Great Expectations" are among Charles Dickens's most famous novels. In both books, the hero tells the vivid and absorbing tale of his education by life, presents a rich range of characters and scenes, and tackles profound moral, social and psychological themes.
Part I of this essential study:
- provides lucid and penetrating analyses of key passages
- discusses the crucial topics of patriarchy, class, obsession, eccentricity, death, breakdown and recovery
- summarizes the methods of analysis and offers suggestions for further work.
Part II supplies key background material, including:
- an account of Dickens's life and works
- a survey of historical, cultural and literary contexts
- samples of significant criticism.
Also featuring a valuable Further Reading section, this volume provides readers with the critical and analytical skills which will enable them to enjoy and explore both novels for themselves.

The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are F. Scott Fitzgerald's best-known novels. They draw on Fitzgerald's own vivid experiences in the 1920s but transform them into art. This stimulating introductory guide analyses their accomplished style and their concern with the promise and perplexity of modern life. Part I of this indispensable study: * provides interesting and informed close readings of key passages * examines how each novel starts and ends * discusses key themes of society, money, gender and trauma * outlines the methods of analysis and offers suggestions for further work. Part II supplies essential background material, including: * an account of Fitzgerald's life * a survey of historical, cultural and literary contexts * samples of significant criticism. Also featuring a helpful Further Reading section, this volume equips readers with the critical and analytical skills which will enable them to enjoy and explore both novels for themselves.

Now recognized as two of Faulkner's greatest novels, "The Sound and the Fury" (1929) and "As I Lay Dying" (1930) were commercial failures in the decade following their publication. By the end of the Second World War, however, the reputation of both novels had grown and Faulkner's great fictional creation, Yoknapatawpha County, had become as much a part of America as any real area of the Mississippi landscape.

This "Guide" explores the wealth of critical material generated by these two exceptional works of modernist fiction. From the initially mixed critical responses to the novels in the early 1930s, the "Guide" follows the enormous growth of interest in Faulkner's work across six decades. New writings shaped by a range of critical theories are discussed, offering the reader a clear view of the place now given to one of America's most innovative and influential novelists.