Interest in Christopher Isherwood's work has grown since his death in 1986, and this interest has included a revisiting of his later work as well as his earlier writing from his time in 1930s Berlin, and the immense success of Mr Norris Changes Trains. His autobiographical writing has also found new readers for his work, as his diaries continue to be published. Traditionally study and explanation of Isherwood's work has always concentrated on the earlier work, and he has been seen largely as a writer of the 1930s, along with Auden, Spender and MacNeice. But Stephen Wade here introduces and explains aspects of Isherwood's later religious fiction as well as covering the Berlin writings. This study guide will expand the reader's knowledge of a writer who is increasingly being rated as one of the major novelists and memoirists of the last century.

Some were industrialists and businessmen who stamped their name there. Others were writers and artists who made Leeds their source of inspiration. On the dark side we also love the villains: Most unusually, however, the book includes some forgotten names: quiet, steady 'heroes' who add that solid, dedicated work so necessary to civic urban community. It is a book about some of the men and women who made Leeds a powerful and fascinating City.

Curious Tales from Lincolnshire is filled with hilarious and surprising examples of folklore, eccentrics, historical and literary events, and popular culture from days gone by, all taken from Lincolnshire's tumultuous history. Here the reader will meet forgers, poets, aristocrats, politicians and some less likely residents of the county, including Spring-Heeled Jack - whose spectral figure reportedly jumped over Newport Arch - and the appearance of an angel in Gainsborough. There has always been much more to Lincolnshire than farm lands and sea-side towns: this is the county that brought us Lord Tennyson (whose brother was treated at an experimental asylum in the area), John Wesley and, in contrast, William Marwood, the notorious hangman; here too were found the Dam Busters, the first tanks and the fishing fleets of Grimsby. All may be found within the pages of this book, bound to delight residents and visitors alike.

Sarah Jacob was the Carmarthenshire farm girl who dominated the national and regional press for almost all of 1869. In the popular imagination she was 'the Welsh fasting girl' and although she was not the first anorexic, she was arguably the first to cause a national furore, and become something of a celebrity. She died despite a team of nurses from Guy's Hospital stationed at her home in Lletherneuadd, and after the best minds in British medicine had set theorised about the cause of her apparently supernatural existence - living in spite of starvation, losing no weight yet clearly suffering in all kinds of ways. Sarah's was not the only story here. Her parents were charged with murder and eventually convicted of manslaughter. The Girl Who Lived on Air retells this human story of an anorexic made to be the centre of a lucrative and also media-hungry 'spin' on the nineteenth century nexus of knowledge between science and superstition, folk-belief and religious asceticism. Stephen Wade covers new ground in examining the medical issues surrounding the case, the legal complexities (including the use of Welsh in court) and the interpretation on a newly enacted law which reformulated serious crime, the prison life of Sarah's parents, and the significance of folklore and superstition in an unusual and yet all too familiar story.

A guide for those who wish to develop their professional writing skills, this book explains fundamental skills such as carrying out research for your book or project, identifying your target readership and submitting copy to editors.

Jewish American writing is an exciting and controversial genre within post-war literature. In this book Stephen Wade offers a student guide to major writers, their key works and to influential background factors including the postmodern, the masternarrative and metafiction. The themes, issues and philosophies of writers including Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Isaac Bashevis Singer are inter-related and wider literary and historical topics are alluded to and explained. Covering women's writing, novels, poetry and drama, the author offers a readable guide to the achievements of a key group of writers in twentieth-century American literature. Key Features * A student guide to major writers in post-war American literature * A chapter on each of the 5 main writers * Covers theoretical aspects -- the postmodern, the masternarrative and metafiction -- in an easily accessible way * Offers background material to situate the work of the writers

In 1941, Beryl Baxter, a dressmaker from Grimsby, signed up to do her bit in the Battle of Britain. She was to serve as a plotter as aircraftswoman in the WAAF and, upon discharge in 1949 she began life as a welfare worker for the Women's Voluntary Service. Her postings included the Korean War, Japan, Hong Kong and Iraq. Throughout these years of service she fulfilled the roles of mother, sister and girlfriend to thousands of servicemen, both conscripts and regulars. Presenting a dramatic narrative from several theatres of war, this book recalls Beryl's life, based on a large archive of letters and documents that she preserved, allowing the reader to go on these journeys to war alongside a brave and enterprising independent woman.

Who else wants to be able to analyse the War Poets? There is a profound sense of discovery for each generation who comes to read the work of the war poets. The reader has to comprehend the sheer enormity and loss of life in a theatre that was at once hellish and paradoxically a cause of massive social change. In this Studymate, the reader is shown how to consider the writing of war and conflict in general and then to understand the historical context. The author then explains the cathartic response of transmuting pain into art or literature. Publisher: Stusymates ISBN: 9781842851432 Number of pages: 128 Dimensions: 215 x 135 mm Edition: 2nd UK ed.

The purpose of this series is to promote the study of writing in the English language through the introduction of the major figures writing in English throughout the ages. They provide an analytical and historical framework for understanding their subjects. Stephen Wade provides an interpretation of W.H. Auden's major themes and preoccupations throughout his long career as a poet. Auden's technical ability and interest in experimental poetic forms were not always succesful, but contain insights into modern society. Despite the too-frequent intellectualism, personal allusion and highly-idiosyncratic diction inherent in Auden's method, Wade pinpoints the strength of his work.