This book offers a critical consideration of Joseph Conrad’s works: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, “Youth,” “The Secret Sharer,” Under Western Skies, Victory. The author discusses Conrad’s works in sections on Themes, Characters, Philosophy, History and Context, Form and Genre. This book is intended for the general reader and for students working on writing about Conrad’s fiction.
J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the most popular writers of the 20th century. His two most famous works of fiction, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, have sold hundreds of millions of copies and completely transformed modern fantasy fiction. In addition, Tolkien was a celebrated scholar, a professor at Oxford, and the author of the most influential article on the great Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf ever written. The new Critical Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien provides a reliable, up-to-date, and encyclopedic source of information on this influential writer for high school and college-level students, teachers, and the general public.
Portraying the Lady - Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James
From Daisy Miller to Isabel Archer to Maisie, female characters dominate the work of Henry James and, often, critical discussion of James's work. Donatella Izzo shifts that discussion to a different, more revealing, plane in this original interpretation of James's short fiction. By redirecting criticism from a biographical emphasis to a focus on James's engagement with the issues of representation, Izzo shows how these short stories actually question and investigate the cultural and ideological practices that produced women, both in literature and in society.
Shakespeare's Books - A Dictionary of Shakespeare Sources
This encyclopaedia-style Dictionary is a comprehensive reference guide to Shakespeare's literary knowledge and recent scholarship on it. Nearly 200 entries cover the full range of literary writing Shakespeare was acquainted with, and which influenced his own work, including classical, historical, religious and contemporary works. It provides an overview of his use of authors such as Virgil, Chaucer, Erasmus, Marlowe and Samuel Daniel, whose influence is across the canon. Other entries cover anonymous or collective works such as the Bible, Emblems, Homilies, Chronicle History plays and the Morality tradition in drama.
The San Francisco Chronicle called this entertaining and informative guide to the Bard's most famous and quotable expressions "delightful...a gem." From "salad days" to "strange bedfellows," the remarkable legacy of William Shakespeare lives on in our everyday vocabulary. Each entry includes the original meaning of the word or expression, the play or poem in which it appears, which character spoke it, and how it is used today. Cross-referenced for easy use; black-and-white line drawings by Tom Lulevitch.
