in literature

A study guide to Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved" featuring a "story behind the story" section, biographical sketches, summaries, analysis, critical essays, and annotated bibliographies.

Presents an introduction to the life and work of nineteenth-century Irish author James Joyce, featuring a biography of Joyce, an analysis of the themes, symbols, and ideas in his writing, a selection of criticism, a chronology, and a bibliography.

Offers a brief introduction to the life and writings of the Bronte sisters, discussing how they developed the Gothic and Romantic gneres in their own unique ways, how their works shocked and delighted readers in their own time, and how their troubled lives influenced their work.

A companion guide to Diana Gabaldon's bestselling series about Claire Randall and her Scottish lover Jamie; includes full synopses of the books in the series, listings of characters, excerpts from her upcoming novel, a glossary and pronunciation guide to the Gaelic terms used, and an annotated bibliography.

"While scholars have long noted the fascination with Roman literature and history expressed by many preeminent British cultural figures of the early and middle eighteenth century, they have only sparingly commented on the increasingly vexed role Rome played during the subsequent Romantic period. This critical oversight has skewed our understanding of British Romanticism as being either a full-scale rejection of classical precedents or an embrace of Greece at the expense of Rome. In contrast, Romantic Antiquity argues that Rome is relevant to the Romantic period not as the continuation of an earlier neoclassicism, but rather as a concept that is simultaneously transformed and transformative: transformed in the sense that new models of historical thinking produced a changed understanding of the Roman past for Romantic writers; transformative because Rome became the locus for new understandings of historicity itself and therefore a way to comprehend changes associated with modernity. The book positions Rome as central to a variety of literary events, including the British response to the French Revolution, the Jacobin novel, Byron's late rejection of Romantic poetics, Shelley's Hellenism, and the London theater, where, author Jonathan Sachs argues, the staging of Rome is directly responsible for Hazlitt's understanding of poetry as antidemocratic, or "right royal."" "By exposing how Roman references helped structure Romantic poetics and theories of the imagination, and how this aesthetic work, in turn, impacted fundamental aspects of political modernity like mass democracy and the spread of empire, the book recasts how we view the presence of antiquity in a modernity with which we continue to struggle."--BOOK JACKET.

Presents twelve critical essays on the writings of twentieth-century author James Joyce, and includes a chronology of his life, a bibliography, and an introduction by Harold Bloom.

A guide to studying Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner, " featuring an introduction, a profile of the author, background notes, a character list, a summary and analysis, selections from critical essays on the work, and an annotated bibliography.

Presents resources for studying Cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses, " including a biographical sketch of the author, a list of characters, a summary and analysis of the novel, and a selection of critical views.

A commentary on the life and works of journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe, author of "The Right Stuff, " discussing his use of irony, his themes, and his pranks, and considering the influences on Wolfe's writing, as well as his impact on other writers.