Italo Calvino (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers)

It is difficult to find a modern author writing in Italian more revered than Italo Calvino. Most critics choose to view his fantasies not as escapes from reality but as alternate ways to perceive it. Works studied in this text include Invisible Cities, The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees, and The Nonexistent Knight.

Isaac Babel (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers)

Critical essays on the work of Isaak Babel, one of a group of poets and novelists whose works were part of a rebirth in Russian literature in the 1920s following the Communist Revolution.

The Jewish Russian writer left an indelible mark with his short stories "My First Goose," "The Story of my Dovecote," "The Awakening," and "Guy de Maupassant."

Romeo and Juliet (Simply Shakespeare)The plays have endured, but over the course of 400+ years, the English language has changed in many ways—which is why today's students often find Shakespeare's idiom difficult to comprehend. Simply Shakespeare offers an excellent solution to their problem. Introducing each play is a general essay covering Shakespeare's life and times. At the beginning of each of the five acts in every play, a two-page spread describes what is about to take place. The story's background is explained, followed by brief descriptions of key people who will appear in the act...

World Literature and Its Times, Volume 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literature and Their Times

The works chosen for World Literature and Its Times 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times have been carefully selected by professors in the field at the universities listed in the Acknowledgements. Keeping the literature-history connection in mind, the team made its selections based on a combination of factors: how frequently a literary work is studied, how closely it is tied to pivotal events in the past or present, and how strong and enduring its appeal has been to readers in and out of the society that produced it. Attention has been paid to contemporary as well as to classic works that have met with critical and/or popular acclaim. 

Henry James (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers)

Bloom refers to Henry James as "the major American writer of prose fiction, outshining his precursor Hawthorne, and his antithesis, Faulkner." This text studies the work of James, including "The Turn of the Screw," "The Beast in the Jungle," "The Lesson of the Master," "The Jolly Corner," and "Daisy Miller."

This title also features a biography of Henry James, a user guide, a detailed thematic analysis of each short story, a list of characters in each story, a complete bibliography of James’ works, an index of themes and ideas, and editor’s notes and introduction by Harold Bloom.