Literary Criticism

Over seventy years since his premature death, George Orwell (1903-50) has become one of the most significant figures in western literature. His two dystopian masterpieces, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen...

A.C. Bradley put Shakespeare on the map for generations of readers and students for whom the plays might not otherwise have become "real" at all' writes John Bayley in his...

'Maeve's Times is funny and clever and kind, which are excellent qualities in both books and people' Irish Times'As someone who fell off a chair not long ago trying to...

The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin is the acclaimed story of Nelly Ternan and Charles DickensWinner of the NCR Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial...

Expanded second edition of this hugely successful introduction to literary theory, a book which has already proven itself as the first port of call for students - Two new chapters...

For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his status as one of Britain's...

Kerryman Con Houlihan, who in his time has been a fisherman, a turf cutter and a rugby player, is now best known as one of Ireland's finest journalists. 'In So...

The Book of Other People is just that: a book of other people. Open its covers and you'll make a whole host of new acquaintances. Nick Hornby and Posy Simmonds...

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese's hit Netflix series, Pretend It's a City.'The gold...

The Underground Sea is a succinct, urgent collection of writing from John Berger's archive. It brings together for the first time his work on mineworkers and the miners' strikes and...

What makes a good death? A good daughter? In 2009, with her forties and a harsh wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker's mother was diagnosed with primary progressive...

Can we ever be wholly free? In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. The...

John McGahern did not spread himself thinly as a writer. Nearly all of his creative energy went into what was central for him: the great novels and stories that are...

'Wordy is about the intoxication of writing; my sense of playful versatility; different voices for different matters: the polemical voice for political columns; the sharp-eyed descriptive take for profiles; poetic...

In these seventeen essays (and one short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the...

Neil Cornwell's study, while endeavouring to present an historical survey of absurdist literature and its forbears, does not aspire to being an exhaustive history of absurdism. Rather, it pauses on...

Author of the Booker-longlisted novel Second Place'Cements her reputation as one of the most fierce and elegant chroniclers of how we live now.' Stephanie Merritt, ObserverCoventry is a collection of...

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism is the gold standard for anyone who wishes to understand the development and current state of literary theory. Offering 185 pieces (31 of...

A celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world', these thirty-plus essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie dispel the myth of...

Village rectories, the traditional family homes of church ministers, have had a long association with writers in Britain. For many, the Georgian rectory nestling against an historic church immediately evokes...

This book features 18 short readings on methods of arguing and persuading, demonstrating that arguments are seldom matters simply of pro and con. The selected readings include: "Freedom of Hate...

By means of short entries linked to individual works, this index provides a guide to Dickens' novels, short stories, pamphlets, plays, collections of journalism and travel books. Entries are listed...

NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'A beautiful book of great tenderness, love of life, and wisdom' JOSEPH O'CONNORFor almost fifty years, Michael Harding has been crafting words in a bid to express himself...

This anthology of classic and cutting-edge statements in literary theory has now been updated to include recent influential texts in the areas of Ethnic Studies, Postcolonialism and International Studies. This...

Literary Theory: An Anthology is a unique combination of the classic statements in criticism and the new theories that have revolutionized literary study in the past several decades. This unprecedented...

"Rolling Stone" is one of the most influential rock magazines in the world, and over the last 25 years it has published some of the most innovative, powerful and evocative...

In her latest work, Annie Ernaux recounts a relationship with a student thirty years her junior - an experience that transforms her, briefly, back into the 'scandalous girl' of her...

Presented for the first time in English, the recently discovered early manuscripts of the twentieth century's most towering literary figure offer uncanny glimpses of his emerging genius and the creation...

In his first critical work since the highly successful "The Art of Fiction" (0140174923), David Lodge writes principally about Grahame Greene, Kingsley Amis and James Joyce, and from there goes...

Edna Longley's second collection of essays for Bloodaxe investigates the links between Irish literature (especially contemporary poetry), Irish culture and Irish politics. The Living Stream takes its title from Yeats's...

In his essay on Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Kennelly writes: 'A poet's critical judgements are always, at bottom, necessary justifications of his own most dearly held aesthetic.' This selection of his...

The Book of Lost Books is a book of stories involving kings, heretics, untimely interruptions and back room deals, falling tortoises and fairy princesses, train crashes and war atrocities, bravery,...

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted...

A Times book of the year A Guardian book of the year 'Magnificent' The Times'Dazzling' New Statesman'It filled me with hope' Zadie Smith We are living in the era of...

A selection of Robert Fisk's finest 'Comment' pieces from the Saturday 'Independent'. Robert Fisk has amassed a devoted readership over the years, with his insightful, witty and always outspoken articles...

A working father whose life no longer feels like his own discovers the transforming powers of great (and downright terrible) literature in this laugh-out-loud memoir. Andy Miller had a job...