Awarded third place for The Adam Gillon Book Award in Conrad Studies 2009 The book presents a sustained critique of the interlinked (and contradictory) views that the fiction of Joseph Conrad is largely innocent of any interest in or concern with sexuality and the erotic, and that when Conrad does attempt to depict sexual desire or erotic excitement then this results in bad writing.
Dickens, Journalism, Music presents the first full analysis of the articles on music published in the two journals conducted by Charles Dickens, Household Words and its successor, All the Year Round.
Dracula (1897) is one of the most commonly studied gothic novels and has been hugely influential through adaptations in fiction, on stage and in cinema.
George Eliot (born Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) was one of the most important writers of the European nineteenth century, as well as a pioneering translator of challenging and controversial Continental thinkers, and an influential editor and essayist.
Reader's Guides provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works.
Derrida, Literature and War argues for the importance of the relation between absence and chance in Derrida's work in thinking today about war and literature.
Henry James's ghost story novella, The Turn of the Screw (1898) is a key gothic text and is one of the most popular James texts for undergraduate study.
The first book to investigate Jane Austen's popular significance today, Everybody's Jane considers why Austen matters to amateur readers, how they make use of her novels, what they gain from visiting places associated with her, and why they create works of fiction and nonfiction inspired by her novels and life.
Drawing on recent theories of digital media and on the materiality of words and images, this fascinating study makes three original claims about the work of William Blake.
Religion has always been an integral part of the literary tradition: many canonical and non-canonical texts engage extensively with religious ideas, and the development of English Literature as a professional discipline began with an explicit consideration of the relationship between religion and literature.
From the early years of the nineteenth century, cultural pessimists imagined in fiction the political forces that might bring about the destruction of London.
Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally.
This book argues that Jane Austin did know of the French Revolution and its effects on the European world, even though she never refers to it directly in her writing.
While Dickens's religion and religious thought is recognized as a significant component of his work, no study of Dickens's religion has carefully considered his often ignored, yet crucially relevant, The Life of Our Lord.
The familiar stories of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and Lazarus and the rich man were part of the cultural currency in the nineteenth century, and Victorian authors drew upon the figures and plots of biblical parables for a variety of authoritative, interpretive, and subversive effects.
While postcolonial studies of Romantic-period literature have flourished in recent years, scholars have long neglected the extent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's engagement with the Orient in both his literary and philsophical writings.
This study applies Kierkegaardian anxiety to Blake's creation myths to explain how Romantic era creation narratives are a reaction to Enlightenment models of personality.
The first book to investigate Jane Austen's popular significance today, Everybody's Jane considers why Austen matters to amateur readers, how they make use of her novels, what they gain from visiting places associated with her, and why they create works of fiction and nonfiction inspired by her novels and life.
Of all the great novelists of the Romantic period, only two, Jane Austen and Walter Scott, have been continuously reprinted, admired, argued about, and read, from the moment their works first appeared until the present day.
Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally.
A one-stop resource containing introductory material through to practical case studies in reading primary and secondary texts to introducing criticism and new directions in research.
Drawing on recent theories of digital media and on the materiality of words and images, this fascinating study makes three original claims about the work of William Blake.
The figure of Dante's Beatrice can be seen as a cultural phenomenon or myth during the nineteenth century, inspiring a wide variety of representations in literature and the visual arts.
Author of Biographia Literaria (1817) and The Friend (1809-10, 1812 and 1818), Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the central figure in the British transmission of German idealism in the 19th century.
The widespread and culturally significant impact of Percy Bysshe Shelley's writings in Europe constitutes a particularly interesting case for a reception study because of the variety of responses they evoked.
"Negative capability", the term John Keats used only once in a letter to his brothers, is a well-known but surprisingly unexplored concept in literary criticism and aesthetics.
This accessibly written book examines the most commonly taken dietary supplements, exploring what they are and what they're purported to do, and summarizing key research findings regarding their potential health benefits and risks.
An indispensable resource for readers investigating Victorian literature and culture, this book offers a comprehensive summary of the historical, social, political, and cultural contexts of Victorian England.
This book has a primary focus on inclusions for solutions to problems and not just more on the nature of the current and emerging problems that most other competing titles present.