Written by Charles Dickens for serial publication in 1859, "A Tale of Two Cities" is a historical novel that takes place in London and Paris in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Its first sentence, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," is one of the most recognizable opening lines in all of literature. This new Bloom's Guide will provide the best of study times for those assigned this famous and widely taught novel. Readers will find this an accessible, quick-reference introduction to the work
This latest edition of the Bloom's Notes series focuses on John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Numerous critical essays examine various aspects of the piece, including the unrealistic characters, dramatic elements, the novel as a comedy, the unity of the novel, and more. The text includes a brief biography of Steinbeck, as well as structural and thematic analysis of the novel.
When slavery has torn apart one's heritage, when the past is more real than the present, when the rage of a dead baby can literally rock a house, then the traditional novel is no longer an adequate instrument. And so Pulitzer Prize-winner Beloved is written in bits and images, smashed like a mirror on the floor and left for the reader to put together.
Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is a favorite of feminist critics, who see it as an early evocation of the ideas that would galvanize the women's liberation movement. This new addition to the "Bloom's Guides" series gathers excerpts of numerous respected critical essays on the novel. Topics discussed include the symbolic use of the sea, literary naturalism, and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in regard to the novel. Helpful features include an annotated bibliography, a listing of other works by the author, and an introduction by master scholar Harold Bloom.
Africa's strong tradition of storytelling has long been an expression of an oral narrative culture. African writers such as Amos Tutuola, Naguib Mahfouz, Wole Soyinka and J. M. Coetzee have adapted these older forms to develop and enhance the genre of the novel, in a shift from the oral mode to print. Comprehensive in scope, these new essays cover the fiction in the European languages from North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara, as well as in Arabic.
