Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers
Showing 1–16 of 27 results
-
A new Jane Austen
£17.99A new Jane Austen
Completing Juliette Wells’ trio of books on Austen’s readers, this latest volume revolutionizes our understanding of how Austen came to be viewed as the world’s greatest novelist. Wells shows that Austen’s global reputation was established not by British scholars, as is commonly believed, but by visionary American writers and collectors, working largely outside academia. Drawing on extensive research, Wells weaves together colorful, compelling case studies of men and women who, from the 1880s to the 1980s, helped readers appreciate Austen’s novels, persuasively advocated for her place in the literary canon, and preserved artifacts vital to her legacy.
£17.99 -
A Wreath for Udomo
£9.99A Wreath for Udomo
Those men who are history now; did they feel like this? A 1950s Hampstead pub; a freezing night. Lois can’t tear her eyes away from the haunted, restless African man in the corner. Over brandy and stew, she discovers he is in awe of her friend, Panafrica’s greatest political writer and fighter. Their meeting inducts this stranger, Udomo, into London’s revolutionary community of exiled African activists: the start of a life-changing journey. Amidst the internal politics and love affairs, Udomo is inspired by other leaders’ independence uprisings; but when he returns to his native land to overthrow the colonial oppressors, his idealism is put to the ultimate test. Inspired by Peter Abrahams’ befriending of future African heads of state in mid-century London, ‘A Wreath for Udomo’ (1956) is a radical lost classic, unforgettably exploring the nature of freedom, power, leadership, and love.
£9.99 -
An A-Z of Jane Austen
£13.99An A-Z of Jane Austen
Jane Austen’s richly textured worlds have enchanted readers for centuries and this neatly organised, playful book provides Austen enthusiasts and students alike with a unique insight into the much-loved writer’s way with words. Using a lively A-Z structure, Greaney provides fresh angles on familiar Austen themes (D is for dance; M is for matchmaking), casts light on under-examined corners of her imagination (R is for risk; S is for servant), and shows how current social and cultural concerns are re-shaping our understanding of her work (Q is for queer; W is for West Indies).
£13.99 -
Art and War
£8.99Art and War
Shimon Adaf and Lavie Tidhar are two of Israel’s most subversive and politically outspoken writers. Growing up on opposite sides of the Israeli spectrum – Tidhar in the north of Israel in the Zion-ist, socialist Kibbutz; Adaf from a family of religious Mizrahi Jews living in Sderot – the two nevertheless shared a love of books, and were especially drawn to the strange visions and outrageous sensibilities of the science fiction that was available in Hebrew. In ‘Art and War’, they engage in a dialogue that covers their approach to writing the fantastic, as they question how to write about Israel and Palestine, about Judaism, about the Holocaust, about childhoods and their end.
£8.99 -
Blythe spirit
£25.00Blythe spirit
Ronald Blythe (1922-2023), author of the inimitable ‘Akenfield’, was a prolific and poetic chronicler of rural and spiritual life, nature and literature. He spent a joyful century close to his Suffolk roots, time travelling in his imagination and publishing forty books and thousands of essays. His wide creative network included John and Christine Nash, Cedric Morris, Benjamin Britten, E.M. Forster, Patricia Highsmith and Richard Mabey. From finding Thomas Hardy in February rain and John Clare in country tracks, to talking to his white cat and reading through a dragonfly’s wings, the Blythe gift was to marvel in the everyday. Drawing on unparalleled access to letters, notebooks, published works, drafts, and conversations from decades of friendship, Ian Collins tells the full story of Ronald Blythe.
£25.00 -
Cliffsnotes TM On Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
£2.95Cliffsnotes TM On Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
A groundbreaking book when it was first published, <b><i>Sister Carrie</i></b> is about a young woman who runs to the big city in search of adventure. She finds it aplenty, and her transgressions are numerous. This was one of the books that began the group of writers known as the Realists. .
£2.95 -
Cocaine Nights
£9.99Cocaine Nights
‘Snort up “Cocaine Nights”. It’s disorientating, deranging and knocks the work of other avant-garde writers into a hatted cock’ Will Self
£9.99 -
Goethe
£25.00Goethe
A ground-breaking biography of one of the greatest writers in history, and the masterpiece that changed our world.
£25.00 -
Hardy women
£25.00Hardy women
A TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER
‘He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all’
£25.00 -
Jane Austen
£9.99Jane Austen
Jane Austen is one of the most extensively read writers in English literature, renowned around the world for her much-loved romantic novels. Little is often known about this brilliant author, yet in this absorbing collection of stories and trivia readers will find answers to the amazing and extraordinary aspects of Austen’s life, work, and legacy.
£9.99 -
Jane Austen
£14.99Jane Austen
The thirteen letters collected by Jane Austen’s House Museum, in Chawton, give us intimate glimpses into her life in Bath and Chawton and on visits to London, many details finding echoes in her fiction. Brought together in this book, these artefacts make a delightful modern-day keepsake of correspondence from one of the world’s best-loved writers.
£14.99 -
Jane Austen
£7.99Jane Austen
In a country parsonage in the late 18th century, there lived a large family of seven children. They were all bright and clever and noisy, so nobody really noticed when little Jane turned quietly into a genius…
£7.99 -
Jane Austen and Lord Byron
£19.99Jane Austen and Lord Byron
Jane Austen and Lord Byron are often presented as opposites, but here they are together at last. In Regency England he was the first celebrity author while she was a parson’s daughter writing anonymously. This book explores how their lives, interests, work and sense of humour often brought them within touching distance, and sets them side by side in the world of the Regency and Romantic period.
£19.99 -
Martha Lloyd’s Household Book
£30.00Martha Lloyd’s Household Book
This is the first facsimile publication of Martha Lloyd’s Household Book, the manuscript cookbook of Jane Austen’s closest friend. Martha’s notebook is reproduced with complete transcription and detailed annotation. Introductory chapters discuss its place among other household books of the long eighteenth century.
£30.00 -
Montaigne
£8.99Montaigne
The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In 1580 and then again in 1588 he published his Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt,self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne’s masterpiece has been enormously influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin introduces readers to thelife, thought, and published work of this unforgettable figure from Renaissance Europe.
£8.99 -
Murder & mystery on the Great Western Railway
£9.99Murder & mystery on the Great Western Railway
Drawing upon contemporary court records and newspaper accounts of the day, the author recounts compelling stories of murder, death and mystery surrounding those who built, worked and travelled on the Great Western Railway.
£9.99