Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber ( , literally New Biography of Cao Xueqin) is a translation of a scholarly work by the famous mainland Chinese critic Zhou Ruchang. Written for the Western reader, it historicizes the life and times of the Chinese novelist Cao Xueqin (c. 1715-1763) and comprehensively introduces the origins of the novel Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng). This translation is unique because it offers the first book-length biography of Cao Xueqin in English. Zhou carefully historicizes the decline of the once illustrious Cao clan, and he demonstrates how Cao Xueqin's own childhood experiences in a wealthy bondservant family during the Qing dynasty profoundly informed the encyclopedic narrative that he would later write. In Between Noble and Humble, Zhou also offers intriguing and controversial theories about Honglou meng based on decades of careful research, for instance, that the famous commentator Red Inkstone was in fact a female relative of Cao Xueqin.

Originally published in 1965, this book was written to provide 'a not too obtrusive guide' to German poetry from Luther's time up until Brecht's. For the most part, the text consists of poems followed by questions, whose purpose is not to provoke an interpretation or to test knowledge so much as to suggest possible starting-points from which lines of thought or of imagination may run. On the whole, the questions are not meant to be answered one by one, but rather to arouse a certain kind of interest and appreciation. A glossary and a guide for further reading are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in poetry and German literature.

Originally published in 1966, this book contains a selection of over a hundred poems from the whole range of Goethe's poetry, except for the scientific and dramatic works. The poems are arranged in groups. Each group has a brief introduction, and each poem is followed, where necessary, by a brief glossarial note and by a longer comment. This incorporates some historical or biographical information, but is mainly critical. The poems give a cumulative sense of the detail of Goethe's art. There is a general introduction, which deals briefly with Goethe's life and has a long section on his use of language. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Goethe's poetry and literary criticism.

This is a detailed analysis of Kafka's novel The Castle, followed by a note on The Trial which points to the resemblance between the two books. Gray's starting point is the patient investigation of what the novel says and does. His object is to avoid any premature decision about 'what Kafka was driving at', for the result of that decision in previous critics was that, armed with a theological, political or psychoanalytical theory that partly fitted, they violated the delicacy and simplified the complexity of the book's operation on the mind. The Castle is not an allegory in which every component 'stands' for some simple thing or quality; it has to be entered and moved about in, the parts referred to each other, the resonances listened to. The Castle is a great work in itself and also has relationships with others in other languages. Gray's exemplary method makes his book valuable to any serious reader of literature.

This book draws on the great wealth of associations of street names in Cambridge. It is not a dictionary, but it provides a series of entries on such topics as the Reformation, George IV and his wife, twentieth-century British scientists, businessmen, Elizabethan times, medieval Cambridge, mayors, millers, and builders. It includes hermits and coal merchants, field marshals and laundresses, martyrs and bombers, unscrupulous politicians and the founder of a Christian community, Cromwell and Newton, an Anglo-Saxon queen and the discoverer of Uranus--all people who lived in or often visited Cambridge.

For Dr Gray German literature since 1871 has been dominated by one intellectual trend: the tendency to think in polar opposites which are felt to be both diametrically opposed and yet capable of fusion, of synthesis. In tracing this trend in literature, he is led to enquire how far the same preoccupations were linked with the German history of the time. In short, did the main literary tradition help to create an atmosphere in which the tyranny of 1933 to 1945 could establish itself. In this 1965 text, Dr Gray uses a combination of broad survey and detailed analysis. The opening chapters isolate and define the tradition, and in a wide sweep show its influence wherever it is to be found in modern German literature, relating it to contemporary events. There are detailed studies of Thomas Mann and Rilke, Hofmannsthal's Der Schwierige and English resistance to German literature.

In this 1976 introduction to Brecht's theatre and theory, Ronald Gray explores the dramatist's interacting roles as a committed Marxist seeking to influence audiences and as one of the most innovative craftsmen ever to work in the theatre. Dr Gray traces the development of Brecht's dramatic work in the context of his life and time and discussed its significance, devoting chapters to reappraisals of the major plays. Particular attention is paid to Brecht's dramatic theories and their relationship to Hegelian and Marxist philosophy, to the tradition of political theatre in Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the influence Brecht had on English and American post-war drama. There are also detailed accounts of how many of the plays appeared in Brecht's own productions, and frequent references to actual performances in widely differing theatrical styles.

Dr Gray aims to encourage in students beginning to read and write about German poetry the skills which will help them to read and write with more insight. After outlining this aim in its introduction, this 1976 book takes the form of a selection of German poems from Luther to Brecht, carefully grouped for purposes of comparison, and with graded questions. Most of the poems are from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but there are also translations from and into German for comparison with the originals, groups of poems on common themes, and different versions of the same poem. It is possible to trace in outline some of the main historical trends of German poetry, and to acquire basic technical knowledge within the book, but its main aim is to guide the reader towards a closer feeling for the words on the page.

This 1973 text provides a critical introduction to the writings of Franz Kafka. Within it Ronald Gray surveys the novels and short stories, and glances also at the religious or confessional writings. He presents a persuasive and coherent account of Kafka's personal and artistic development and its meaning and value for us. Dr Gray argues that the early short stories are most finished and controlled; here Kafka recognised and managed to find a form exactly fitting his own condition, and the writing is less compulsive and obsessional than it became later. Dr Gray quotes extensively, translating specifically for the purpose. He writes for all whose who read Kafka, especially the many who read him in translation and would like a helpful and shrewd guide to understanding. Kafka's work hauntingly expresses one whole area of the modern mind - its anguish, dissociation and guilt - and this sane and sympathetic book puts him into a humane perspective.

"Dr. Ronald Gray has repeatedly given us valuable examples of his literary investigations. His present study bears witness to his sound scholarship in general and to his sound understanding of Goethe's work in particular." TES

This volume surveys the state of knowledge and research on the determinants of human reproduction. It adopts an inter-disciplinary approach and integrates information from demographic, epidemiological and biological studies of fertility. The chapters provide a comprehensive overview of reproductive processes, including puberty and menopause, conception and fetal loss, and the effects of sexually transmitted diseases and lactation. The volume also considers the effects on fertility of nutrition and stress, environmental and occupational hazards, and social behaviour, and includes clinical papers on fertility following contraceptive use and treatment of infertility. Findings from original research on the determinants of human reproduction are also presented.