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Understanding Julian Barnes surveys the career of an innovative British novelist who has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize on three occasions. In this analysis of Barnes’s distinctive qualities and of his place in the British literary establishment, Merritt Moseley suggests that Barnes’s greatest achievement is his ability to resist summary and categorization by imagining each book in a dramatically original way.

In evaluating Barnes’s fiction, Moseley discusses the novelist’s admiration for Gustave Flaubert, identifies his technical and thematic concerns, and explores the intrigue surrounding his divided career as a writer of serious novels, published under his own name, and of detective thrillers, published under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. Moseley provides close readings of Barnes’s book-length works, defending the writer against the charge that some of these volumes should not be considered novels at all and examining his commitment to writing books rich in the exploration of serious ideas. ... Read more

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In this volume Suvir Kaul addresses the relations between literary culture, English commercial and colonial expansion, and the making of 'Great Britain' in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He argues that literary writing played a crucial role in generating the vocabulary of British nationalism, both in inter-national terms and in attempts to realign political and cultural relations between England, Scotland, and Ireland. The formal innovations and practices characteristic of eighteenth-century English literature were often responses to the worlds brought into view by travel writers, merchants, and colonists. Writers (even those suspicious of mercantile and colonial expansion) worked with a growing sense of a 'national literature' whose achievements would provide the cultural capital adequate to global imperial power, and would distinguish Great Britain for its twin success in 'arms and arts'. The book ranges from Davenant's theatre to Smollet's Roderick Random to Phillis Wheatley's poetry to trace the impact of empire on literary creativity.

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Humor began in British literature during the Middle Ages, when Chaucer developed the storytelling tradition along with the ironies that resulted from the juxtaposition of people from different classes and points of view. This book overviews scholarship on humor in British literature from its medieval origins through the seventeenth century. Chapters are devoted to particular centuries, with authors listed individually within each chapter. Each entry discusses the role of humor in the author's work and includes a bibliography. ... Read more

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In the first collection devoted to mentoring relationships in British literature and culture, the editor and contributors offer a fresh lens through which to observe familiar and lesser known authors and texts. Employing a variety of critical and methodological approaches, which reflect the diversity of the mentoring experiences under consideration, the collection highlights in particular the importance of mentoring in expanding print culture. Topics include John Wilmot the Earl of Rochester's relationships to a range of role models, John Dryden's mentoring of women writers, Alexander Pope's problematic attempts at mentoring, the vexed nature of Jonathan Swift's cross-gender and cross-class mentoring relationships, Samuel Richardson's largely unsuccessful efforts to influence Urania Hill Johnson, and an examination of Elizabeth Carter and Samuel Johnson's as co-mentors of one another's work. Taken together, the essays further the case for mentoring as a globally operative critical concept, not only in the eighteenth century, but in other literary periods as well. ... Read more

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The Fourth Edition of The Longman Anthology of British Literature continues its tradition of presenting works in the historical context in which they were written.  This fresh approach includes writers from the British Isles, underrepresented female authors, “Perspectives” sectionsthatshed light on the period as a whole and link with immediately surrounding works to help illuminate a theme, “And Its Time” clusters that illuminate a specific cultural moment or a debate to which an author is responding, and “Responses” in which later authors respond to one or more texts from earlier works.  New works include William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat (the 1^st English novel), Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Books 6 and the Two Cantos of Mutability and William Shakespeare’s Othello and King Lear.  

Customer Reviews (6)

Review of Longmans British Lit Anthology
The book of British Literature is in excellent conditon and contains usefull information as well as retaining the aesthetic nature of the text.

One of the better anthologies required
I was required to buy this for a British literature course. Usually books of this kind get resold since I'm not an English major, but this will be an exception. I enjoyed the collection of works they included and the introductions and footnotes included help with comprehension.

Excellent variety of selections
I appreciate the breadth and balance of the selection of materials in the Longman Anthology, particularly in comparison with the Norton Anthology. While the Norton Anthology has more prestige, it has some curious choices of material (granted I own the 7th edition some improvements may have been made in newer issues).

Where the Longman anthology (in a one-volume anthology no less) has a verse translation of Beowulf, Norton has a turgid prose translation. Norton completely ignores Arthurian literature (apart from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and a tad of Malory). Norton devotes 250 pages to Edmund Spenser (as opposed to 120 to Chaucer and 150 to Shakespeare). In virtually every time period, the Longman anthology shows better editorial decision-making. David Damrosch also does an excellent job selecting works that are crucial to the development of English Literature along with the works that represent the pinnacle of accomplishment. For instance, it is easier to trace the impact of personal journals, travel literature, literary periodicals and essays on the development of the novel using the Longman Anthology because of their superior organization of this material.

Finally, the inclusion of many examples of contemporary criticism, social documents and grouping of material into natural thematic topics allows a teacher to demonstrate the impact of society on, and the social consequences of, literature in an organic way. This method gives teachers the ability to easily teach literature in concert with history, philosophy and the other humanities.

Considering that this anthology is only now in its first few editions, it represents a very strong entry in the marketplace. I have been very pleased using it. The typesetting and sturdy paper are also an improvement on many other available anthologies.

Excellent anthology for many levels
The book pictured here is the first edition.Longman is now in its second edition.Both are excellent for their copious selection of canonical authors and inclusion of women writers and
sociopolitical contexts.The new edition also contains superb color plates and a few corrections;I have written elsewhere about it.

I continue to use and enjoy
...this is an excellent anthology, packed with both canonical authors and new, more marginal, figures.Printed on thin "bible paper" but with very little bleed-through, its wide range and beautiful color plates make it ideal for survey courses and, with a few supplements, for upper level courses. ... Read more

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In Infamous Commerce, Laura J. Rosenthal uses literature to explore the meaning of prostitution from the Restoration through the eighteenth century, showing how both reformers and libertines constructed the modern meaning of sex work during this period. From Grub Street’s lurid "whore biographies" to the period’s most acclaimed novels, the prostitute was depicted as facing a choice between poverty and some form of sex work. Prostitution, in Rosenthal’s view, confronted the core controversies of eighteenth-century capitalism: luxury, desire, global trade, commodification, social mobility, gender identity, imperialism, self-ownership, alienation, and even the nature of work itself.

In the context of extensive research into printed accounts of both male and female prostitution—among them sermons, popular prostitute biographies, satire, pornography, brothel guides, reformist writing, and travel narratives—Rosenthal offers in-depth readings of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa and Pamela and the responses to the latter novel (including Eliza Haywood’s Anti-Pamela), Bernard Mandeville’s defenses of prostitution, Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, and travel journals about the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Seas. Throughout, Rosenthal considers representations of the prostitute’s own sexuality (desire, revulsion, etc.) to be key parts of the changing meaning of "the oldest profession." ... Read more

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Investigating the litarary and cultural history and significance of the holy fool, Sandra Pyle analysizes seven of Shakespeare's plays in order to discover how he adapted what was a generic (medieval) character type. Pyle then theorizes that the holy fool's mission in Shakespeare's plays is to promote harmony and good will by correcting those personality flaws that impede human community. The text then suggests that the identification and development of the holy fool as a viable literary device has led to the discovery of a new motif in Shakespeare's dramas. That is, the salvific element of play inherent in the role of holy fool as spiritual physician. This character demonstrates how art, particularly drama, proves an indespensable tool for illustrating how personal moral choices impact on a society. ... Read more

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By analyzing the English Romantic Era's masculine gender norms as a set of contrasts between a heterosexual "norm" and a sodomitic "other," this book isolates four tropes that distinguish the sodomite: criminality, silence, effeminacy, and foreignness.These tropes are then traced through Byron's early poetry, the first two cantos of Childe Harold and the popular Oriental tales, demonstrating the ways the Byronic persona and the Byronic hero are deeply indebted to the conflicted sites of homosexual meaning in the Romantic age. Discussions of legal and literary cases, as well as attention to the political implications of heterosexuality as an ideal created to serve a (re)productive ideology of empire, make this study of interest not only to Romantic scholars, but also to scholars of gender theory, history, and postcolonial studies. ... Read more

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The purpose of this book is to examine the many heterosexual configurations in the plays and to demonstrate by the accumulation of evidence that the actions of Shaw's chief characters are typically the result of their sexual concerns, often coupled with issues of principle. This book is a must for all Shaw specialists and will be of great interest to teachers and students of English and Continental drama and literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ... Read more

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Dickens's classic tale is examined in essays that focus on imagery, themes, biblical allusions, and critical reaction to the story. (20020501) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting and provocative
If the true mark of a masterpiece is that any person can find his own interpretation therein, this little book is ample proof that Dickens' enduring tale, "A Christmas Carol", is a masterpiece, indeed.Each of the critics in this little volume has a different interpretation of Dickens' intent though none is so bold as to suggest that his purpose might have been to provide entertainment or make money.

Among the expected interpretations are those that discuss the dichotomy between the industrial revolution and family values, rural and urban life, and Scrooge as the embodiment of "economic man."Other selections interpret Scrooge as Everyman - each of us experiences Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come every year - or interpret the ghostly visits as dream sequences based on Scrooge's impression of himself and his impressions of what others think of him.One selection discusses the fairytale elements of the story.

Another, one of the more bizarre interpretations, compares Dickens' story to a parable about the conversion of Jews to Christianity, an unconvincing argument that, nevertheless, contains a few interesting ideas.E.g., in the Bible, Ebenezer is a stone and in "A Christmas Carol" Ebenezer Scrooge is stone-hearted; Jacob Marley represents Israel who rejected Christ; and in contrast, all of the Cratchet family have New Testament names.This is rather slim support for the thesis, but interesting none-the-less.

One of the most compelling interpretations is that Scrooge is undergoing an ersatz gestalt therapy session, that he is meeting the demons of his past and conquering them (particularly the image of himself as a lonely child), reckoning with the demons of the present, and confronting the main demon of the future - death.Although this is an appealing interpretation, it is anachronistic to claim that Dickens would have actually intended this, given that he wrote the story in 1843, several decades in advance of Freud's work.However, that this, and the other authors can find so many levels of meaning in this story does demonstrate again the universality of the work and does give the reader something further to ponder, especially on a second, fifth or tenth reading of this seasonal favorite.

There is also a short biography of Dickens, a chronology of "A Christmas Carol", and a bibliography.In the preface, the editors note that this book, as well as the series to which it belongs, is written with "young adults" in mind. Perhaps, but the material should also appeal to any reader whose comprehension level allows him to ponder what he is reading or has read.Although the book is short, its ideas are so many and varied.

(One note, the hard-cover binding is very tight and makes it difficult to keep the book open.The paperback might be a better choice.) ... Read more

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Between 1800 and 1850, political demonstrations and the tumult of a ballooning street life not only brought novel kinds of crowds onto the streets of London, but also fundamentally changed British ideas about public and private space. The Crowd sets out to demonstrate the influence of these new crowds, riots, and demonstrations on the period's literature. John Plotz offers compelling readings of works by Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Carlyle, William Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and Charlotte Bronte, arguing that new "representative" crowds became a potent rival for the representational claims of literary texts themselves. As rivals in representation, these crowds triggered important changes not simply in how these authors depicted crowds, but in their notions of public life and privacy in general.
The Crowd is the first book devoted to an analysis of crowds in British literature. In addition to this being a noteworthy and innovative contribution to literary criticism, it addresses ongoing debates in political theory on the nature of the public-political realm and offers a new reading of the contested public discourses of class, nation, and gender. In the end, it provides a sophisticated and rich analysis of an important facet of the beginning of the modern age. ... Read more

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In this introduction to prolific British novelist Beryl Bainbridge, Brett Josef Grubisic provides a biographical sketch of the writer, discussion of her motivations and techniques, and a detailed survey of her fiction that places the works in the traditions of British black comedy, social novels, and historical fiction.

Born near Liverpool in 1934, Bainbridge has explained that her troubled youth was instrumental in her choice to write novels. A fractious family, discouraging social milieu, and wartime deprivations forged the darkly comic perspective that informs Bainbridge's fiction.

Emerging on the literary scene in the 1970s with widely praised novels such as The Dressmaker, The Bottle Factory Outing, Sweet William, A Quiet Life, and Injury Time, Bainbridge quickly established a reputation for her keen observations of social dysfunction and her darkly comic tone. In approaching her works, Grubisic maps Bainbridge's movement from social to historical novels, beginning with the comic historicism of Young Adolf and continuing to her most recent fiction, The Birthday Boys, Every Man for Himself, Master Georgie, and According to Queeney. Grubisic holds that in portraying historical events through a variety of narrative techniques or from oblique vantage points, Bainbridge's latest novels partially ally themselves with the style and ideological concerns of literary postmodernism while still recalling the defining view of hardship established in her youth.