Literary Criticism

In this investigation into loss, losing and being lost, Rebecca Solnit explores the challenges of living with uncertainty. A Field Guide to Getting Lost takes in subjects as eclectic as...

Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labour, Ernaux's father had grown...

"Devotion is short enough to devour at one enjoyable sitting and thought-provoking enough to deserve re-reading."-Suzi Feay, Financial Times "Devotion shows rather than tells what it means to give a...

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM 2019From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Changing My Mind and Swing Time - discover a second...

From the bestselling author of UNDERLAND, THE OLD WAYS and THE LOST WORDS - an essay on the joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a bookEvery book...

In this entertaining and enlightening collection David Lodge considers the art of fiction under a wide range of headings, drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James, Martin Amis, Jane...

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster's classic guide-a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how...

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'If you want to write a novel or a script, read this book' Sunday Times 'The best book on the craft of storytelling I've ever read' Matt...

Jayne A. Quan writes with honesty and humour about key moments in their life and transition. With lyric insight and quiet clarity, Quan navigates the intersection of loss, grief, memory...

People everywhere have found themselves faced with a global pandemic, during which we have learned to cope with sickness and all that accompanies it: isolation, immunity, loss of control, and...

A Guest at the Feast uncovers the places where politics and poetics meet, where life and fiction overlap, where one can be inside writing and also outside of it.From the...

The first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age....

Where, or what, is home? What has it meant, historically and personally, to be 'Italian' or 'English', or both in a culture that prefers us to choose? What does it...

What exactly are the Weird and the Eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to...

Imagine a type of writing so hard to define its very name means a trial, effort or attempt. An ancient form with an eye on the future, a genre poised...

You know the authors' names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. This is The Elements of Style, the classic style manual, now in a fourth edition....

Set around a small family farm on the edge of a bog, a few miles from the river Shannon, Minor Monuments is a collection of essays unfolding from the landscape...

'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...

The third edition of the original full-length handbook which caters to the specific needs of work-based learners. Compiled by work-based learning experts, this hands-on guide helps new learners to successfully...

Written by experienced careers advisor Steve Rook, the new edition of this indispensable guide will help readers to develop the skills they need to land their dream job. It breaks...

Help your students develop a critical mindset with this practical guide. Becoming a Critical Thinker begins by unpicking where knowledge comes from before showing students how to recognise biases and...

'Without question the most important book of the year' MARINA HYDE'Superb' TOM HOLLANDReading built the modern world. It helped create democracy, science and reason.Now, books are dying, and people everywhere...

Selected from over 160 titles this is an anthology of non-fiction writings by one of South Africa's most respected writers and author of the Booker Prizewinner "The Conservationist". She also...

Genius is one of the those words upon which the world has agreed to form no clear consensus', Joseph Epstein tells us in his introduction to "Literary Genius". How then...

This enduringly popular book has become a classic in the expanding and increasingly popular field of Gothic Studies. This long awaited new edition contains a new chapter on 'Contemporary Gothic',...

*A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN THE GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES AND EVENING STANDARD*Twelve bytes. Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way...

It is said that British Drama was shockingly lifted out of the doldrums by the 'revolutionary' appearance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court in May...

'Totally addictive.'- Alice Loxton, The Daily Telegraph 'An intriguing, highly snackable guide to women's experiences.'- Independent 'A modern classic.'- Alison Weir, author and historian 'The sort of book you return...

Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney and Salman Rushdie feature in this collection of over forty interviews with award-winning authors.; This is a genre-crossing collection of interviews and essays that...

Tough-minded and typically idiosyncratic, here is Chandler on Chandler, the mystery novel, writing, Hollywood, TV, publishing, cats, and famous crimes. This skillfully edited selection of letters, articles, and notes also...

Replacing the "Annals of English Literature" (first published by OUP in 1935), the "Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature" presents a chronological record of around 15,000 works published in the...

From popular histories through to reworkings of classical subject matter by contemporary poets, dramatists, and novelists, the classical world and the masterpieces of its literature continue to fascinate readers and...

'A magnificent achievement . . . Hugely recommended' STEPHEN FRY'I simply adored this book' JILLY COOPER'Will send you rushing back to your bookshelves' DAVID NICHOLLS'A pleasure' DEBORAH LEVYThis is a...

Postmodernism and Popular Culture brings together eleven recent essays by Angela McRobbie in a collection which deals with the issues which have dominated cultural studies over the last ten years.A...

In exploring postmodern debates across disciplines and genres, the author considers the institutional conditions and intellectual regroupings which frame postmodern theory and shows that the theory, although proclaiming a diversity...

Shakespeare and the Nature of Women was the first full-length feminist analysis of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, ushering in a new era in research and criticism. Its...

Malcolm Gladwell is the master of playful yet profound insight. His ability to see underneath the surface of the seemingly mundane taps into a fundamental human impulse: curiosity. From criminology...

This introductory study provides a comprehensive and coherent account of all Andrew Marvell's poetry for those with no specialised knowledge of seventeenth-century literature and history. After a brief account of...

'Better mad with the crowd than sane all alone'In these witty, Machiavellian aphorisms, unlikely Spanish priest Baltasar Gracian shows us how to exploit friends and enemies alike to thrive in...