Death is indisputably central to Beckett's writing and reception. This collection of research considers a number of Beckett's poems, novels, plays and short stories through considerations of mortality and death. It includes chapters that explore the theme of deathliness in relation to Beckett's work as a whole, through three main approaches.

From Black Beauty to Beckett.

This book places the major novels of Jane Austen within the moral and social contexts of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England in a clear and accessible language.

This updated and expanded new edition reviews Rushdie's novels in the light of recent critical developments. It also features new chapters which examine the author's latest works including Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown (2005) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008), bringing coverage of this important British author up to the present.

A range of academics, novelists, and writers take a multidisciplinary approach, exploring Kurt Vonnegut's life, works, and influence, adeptly reassessing his influential body of work.

With an unconventional new perspective, Anderson identifies Edgar Allan Poe's texts as a journey and explores the ways Poe both encounters and transcends the realm of the material.

The historical novel is not only an immensely popular genre, but also one that raises fascinating questions about the nature of key foundational concepts such as fact and fiction, history, reading and writing. This guide offers an introduction to both the genre and the critical debates around it.

Performance Audio Edition 2 Discs. Listen to this intruiging audiobook, and unlock the mysteries of the Da Vinci Code. What is the code and what is all the fuss about? Despite being a work of fiction, the best-selling novel has a plot based on a number of concepts and ideas that the author claims to be true. This book explores the locations, historical facts and theories, and the sources of ...

Looks at the Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow as a leading figure in the development of contemporary fiction, one whose work has, however, been challenged by more experimental, 'post-modern' developments in the novel. This book draws attention to Bellow's comedy, his sense of contemporary history and its stresses and anxieties.

A study of Philip Roth as a major twentieth-century writer. Setting the novelist's work in the context of Jewish-American writing (and Jewish-American families) and twentieth-century American politics, it explores the characteristic paradoxes in Roth: self-disgust and self-consciousness, stylishness and vulgarity, surrealism and the mundane.

'York Notes for GCSE' offer an approach to English Literature that aims to help readers achieve a better grade. This series has been completely updated to reflect the needs of today's students. The new editions have detailed summaries, commentaries on key themes, characters, language and style, illustrations, exam advice and much more.

An introduction to the novels of Virginia Woolf. It is suitable for students starting out on a study of Woolf as a novelist, and for general readers seeking a fresh, helpful entry-point to the challenge of reading Woolf.

A literary analysis that focuses on the changes in attitude and expectation that the British writers demonstrate in navigating the issues of race, class, gender, religion, education and age in both Indian and European characters and settings. It discusses, compares and contrasts Indian nationalism in three seminal novels.

The writer and Oscar-winner James Hilton is best known as the author of Goodbye, Mr Chips as well as the novel Lost Horizon in which he invented the notion of Shangri-la. This title offers an account of his life and literary career (including a chronology), a listing of his works, and a key to the important characters and locations.

Professor by day, callgirl by night - a true story

Examines how Chuck Palahniuk pushes through a variety of boundaries to shape fiction and to interrogate American cultures in powerful and important ways. This title includes essays that discuss Palahniuk's texts, contexts, contributions, and controversies.

In this work of feminist literary criticism the authors explore the works of many major 19th-century women writers. They chart a tangible desire expressed for freedom from the restraints of a confining patriarchal society and trace a distinctive female literary tradition.

Examines the changing cultural, political and physical landscape of Spain as represented in Spanish crime fiction. This work examines regional and cultural illiteracy in Jorge Martinez Reverte's Galvez series and Spain's changing urban centers as represented in Andreu Martin's El blues de la semana mas negra .

Brings to the forefront an array of novels by Arab women writers. This title presents an analysis that ranges from the work of Zaynab Fawwaz, published at the end of the nineteenth century, to that of Sahar Khalifah and Najwa Barakat, published at the cusp of the twenty-first. It discusses the novels that reflect Arab concerns.

Offers a biographical survey of Ishiguro's literary career, an introduction to his novels, plays and short stories, as well as an accessible overview of the contexts and many interpretations of his work.