Literary studies: general

With sly sophistication and ebullient charm, Lila Azam Zanganeh shares the intoxication of delirious joy to be found in reading - in particular, in reading the masterpieces of 'the great writer of happiness' Vladimir Nabokov.

Uncover the truth behind our food addiction - and learn how to break the cycle Many of us find ourselves powerless in front of a bag of crisps, a packet of biscuits, the last slice of pizza.

Jane Austen is the definitive biography of one of Britain's best-loved novelists, from the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman'As near perfect a life of Austen as we are likely to get: intelligent, feeling, suggestive' Carmen Callil, Daily Telegraph'Tomalin has written a biography that reflects Austen's own exacting standards, a book that radiates intelligence, wit and insight' Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times'Of all the Austen biographies, this is the best .

These are Shakespeare's greatest writings on power in all its forms - in love, in war, in politics and in the family.

These sagas recount fierce feuds in which honour is fought for, sacrifice is demanded, and blood is shed.

Kormak's Saga, The Saga of Hallfred Troublesome-Poet, The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue, The Saga of Bjorn, Champion of the Hitardal People, Viglund's Saga Set in the farmsteads of Viking age Iceland at a time when the old ethos of honour and heroic adventure merged with new ideas of romantic infatuation, each of these sagas features poet heroes, complex love triangles, and travels to foreign lands.

Discover the fascinating autobiography of Dick Francis, one of the greatest jockeys and thriller writers of all timeDick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys.

A vital resource for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could be misunderstood by or are unknown to a modern audience.

Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic novel in blank verse, tells the story of the making of a woman poet, exploring 'the woman question', art and its relation to politics and social oppression.

Controversy raged through England during the 1570-80s as Puritans denounced all manner of games & pastimes as a danger to public morals.

Nietzsche's first published book, The Birth of Tragedy is a compelling argument for the necessity of art in lifeThis landmark work of criticism is fuelled by Nietzsche's enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the music of Wagner, to whom the book was dedicated.

Kathleen Parkinson places this brilliant and bitter satire on the moral failure of the Jazz Age firmly in the context of Scott Fitzgerald's life and times.

This compilation, in the tradition of the Victorian miscellany, gathers together essential facts and fascinating insights into the plays and poems, the man behind them (insofar as this is known), and the context in which he worked.

A unique collection of Shakespeare's soliloquies, each introduced by concise and informative editorial notes.

Egil's Saga tells the story of the long and brutal life of tenth-century warrior-poet and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson: a morally ambiguous character who was at once the composer of intricately beautiful poetry, and a physical grotesque capable of staggering brutality.

Including Down and Out in Paris and London'Orwell was the great moral force of his age' SpectatorThe powerful writings collected together in this volume chronicle George Orwell's first-hand experiences of life among the underclass of the 'two nations' of rich and poor.

Humour, pathos and suffering, and the culminating drama of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, give these plays a wonderful immediacy.

This collection of letters forms a fascinating day-by-day account of Steinbeck's writing of EAST OF EDEN, his longest and most ambitious novel.

Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck was a prolific correspondent.

Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar.

Published to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of Armistice, this collection is intended to be an introduction to the great wealth of First World War Poetry.

How did plague turn Shakespeare from a jobbing hack into a courtly poet?

'These essays .

First published in July 1850, shortly after Wordsworth's death, The Prelude was the culmination of over fifty years of creative work.

In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty.

An Icelandic saga which mixes realism with wild gothic imagination and history with eerie tales of hauntings.

The era between the accession of Henry VIII and the crisis of the English republic in 1659 formed one of the most fertile epochs in world literature.

This compelling Icelandic history describes the life of King Harald Hardradi, from his battles across Europe and Russia to his final assault on England in 1066, less than three weeks before the invasion of William the Conqueror.

When this volume of Shakespeare's poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous.

The works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world: they created much of the terminology still in use today and formulated enduring questions about the nature and function of literature.

'Buttonholes the reader with its informality, its unhurried rhythms, deadpan humour and acerbic remarks'Frances Spalding, Sunday TimesFor Gertrude Stein and her wife Alice B.

Tennyson's poetry epitomizes the Victorian age, for which he became a spokesman.

The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft is the acclaimed bestselling biography by Claire TomalinWinner of the Whitbread First Book PrizeWitty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day.

'Enjoyable, lively such a pleasure to read renders the drama of Shakespeare s contemporaries more than fringe entertainment Independent Shakespeare is one of the greatest of all English figures, considered a genius for all time.

In l978 Sontag wrote Illness As Metaphor.

Volume two of Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory's powerful and elegaic version of the Arthurian legend, recounts the adventures of Sir Tristram de Liones and the treachery of Sir Mordred, and follows Sir Launcelot's quest for The Holy Grail, his fatally divided loyalties, and his great, forbidden love for the beautiful Queen Guenever.

Le Morte D'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's richly evocative and enthralling version of the Arthurian legend.

In the twenty-one poems of the Heroides, Ovid gave voice to the heroines and heroes of epic and myth.

Bartolom de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World.

In 1612 Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster it is the only occasion his spoken words are recorded.

In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'.

Several Strangers is an acclaimed literary collection by bestselling author Claire TomalinFrom the celebrated biographer of Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, Several Strangers collects together the best of Claire Tomalin's literary pieces over a period of thirty years - including reviews of books on Freud, Katherine Mansfield, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Gaskell, Christina Rossetti and Virginia Woolf.

A.

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE was written towards the beginning of Hardy's career as a novelist and can be considered one of his most representative works.

The first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist, which was almost single-handedly responsible for creating the Bront myth A classic in its own right, still read today as one of the great works of Victorian literature Lucasta MillerElizabeth Gaskell s biography of her close friend Charlotte Bront was published in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim and remains the most significant study of the enigmatic author who gave Jane Eyre the sub-title An Autobiography .

A unique treatise by a poet, written for poets, on the art of poetry, LA VITA NUOVA is elaborately and symbolically patterned, consisting of a selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own prose commentary.

He was born to be King.

One of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history In his near-contemporary account of classical Greek tragedy, Aristotle examines the dramatic elements of plot, character, language and spectacle that combine to produce pity and fear in the audience, and asks why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process.

These three works of fiction - two by Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and one by her daughter Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein - are powerfully emotive stories that combine passion with forceful feminist argument.

'She is alive and active - we hear her voice and trace her influence even now' Virginia WoolfWriting in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792.