A biography of Samuel Johnson, a conversationalist, the rationalist epitome and the sage of the Enlightenment. It includes the periodical essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler . It also includes Johnson's moral fable, Rasselas; the Prefaces to the Dictionary and his edition of Shakespeare ; and, selections from Lives of the Poets .

Neglected and forgotten for many years, the novels written by the Dominican-born Jean Rhys are widely acclaimed. Her last and most famous novel, Wide Sargasso Sea is a central text for the imaginative re-examination of gender and colonial power relations. This book places Rhys's work in relation to modernist and postmodernist writing.

York Notes Advanced aim to help make the study of literature more fulfilling and lead to exam success. They should also be of interest to the general reader, as they cover the widest range of popular literature titles. This title covers The Merchant's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Created and edited by Justin Kestler and Ben Florman, SparkNotes Literature Guides provide analysis of (currently) 175 classic works of English and foreign language literature - novels, biographies, plays and poetry - that most commonly appear on examination syllabuses. These books provide the insights that today's students need to know.

Reviews Carter's novels in the light of critical developments, and offers different perspectives on her work. This title features discussion of Carter's most widely-studied novels, including The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus , and discussion of the long essay The Sadeian Woman .

Enables the new reader of Ulysses to understand, analyse and appreciate the most famous, and famously 'difficult', novel of the twentieth century. This guide shows how Joyce reacted to the historical and cultural context in which he was situated. It is suitable for undergraduate students.

Andrew Taylor explores the intellectual relationship between Henry James and his father.

This collection of comparative critical and theoretical essays examines James Baldwin and Toni Morrison's reciprocal literary relationship. By reading these two authors side-by-side, this collection forges new avenues of discovery and interpretation related to their representations of African American cultural experience.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) spoke of the promiscuity of art and literature& mdash;the willingness of great artists and writers to scandalize their spectators through critical frankness, complexity, and beauty. Sontag's life and thought were no less promiscuous. She wrote deeply and engagingly about a range of subjects& mdash;theater, sex, politics, novels, torture, and illness& mdash;and courted ...

The No Fear Shakespeare series contains a complete edition of a Shakespeare play on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an accessible, modern English translation on the right.

A fresh look by leading scholars at the way issues of truth, history and power circulate in James's texts.

Comprises of fourteen authoritative essays that, discuss, explicate, and critique a variety of work by writers of historical fiction, aiming to offer insightful analysis.

Neil Gaiman is a pop culture phenomenon touching everything from animation, Japanese anime, the music of Tori Amos, Hollywood cinema, theatre, and everything in between. This book chronicles the history and impact of the complete works of Neil Gaiman in film, fiction, comic books, and beyond.

Boldrini examines how Dante's literary and linguistic theories helped shape Joyce's radical narrative techniques.

Platt places Finnegans Wake in precise historical conditions and explores Joyce's engagement with European fascism.

The biographical, historical, cultural and political contexts of Conrad's work in a series of short, accessible chapters.

YORK NOTES ADVANCED - THE ULTIMATE LITERATURE GUIDES.

Features essays on how business and businesspeople have been portrayed by novelists, starting in the eighteenth century and continuing to the end of the twentieth century.

Argues that both Victorian psychology and the novel made significant contributions to both contemporary and current trauma theory.

An examination of James's representation of the privileges and pains of turn-of-the-century society.