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City and Shore
Certain settings have long been a common element in British mystery and detective fiction: the quaint village; the country manor; the seaside resort; the streets of London. More than simply providing background, physical setting--in particular the city of London and the British seashore--takes on an added dimension, in a sense becoming a player in the mysteries, one that symbolizes, intensifies, and illuminates aspects of the British mystery novel. The first section examines 18 British mystery novels set in the city of London; the second covers 15 novels set by the sea. The novels span the twentieth century; among the authors whose works are included are Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, G.K. Chesterton and P.D. James. The book includes a short biography and listing of primary works for the authors covered, and appendices offer suggested fiction utilizing the two settings, and critical nonfiction covering the genre.
Riverbank and Seashore in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British Literature
The waters of river and sea represent a kind of freedom, a liberty which, as Iris Murdoch writes, enables man "to exist sanely without fear and to perceive what is real." As settings in fiction, the riverbank and seashore are rich in potential, offering a sense of destiny and suggesting the possibility of self-truth and self-knowledge. In British literature, the rural costal setting-shadowed by cliffs, tugged by the constant movement of the sea--becomes the site of revelation and generates the energy that brings characters to a new level of self-awareness. The river's embankments, bridges and tunnels often mark specific stages of revelation and movement in plot. Entrapment and isolation, con...
Understanding Alan Sillitoe
Understanding Alan Sillitoe offers a lucid appraisal of the life and works of the well-known contemporary British writer hailed by critics as the literary descendent of D.H. Lawrence. Known primarily for his novels Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Sillitoe has written more than 50 books over the last 40 years, including novels, plays, collections of short stories, poems, and travel pieces, as well as more than four hundred essays. In this comprehensive study of the major novels and short stories, Hanson reveals Sillitoe's artistic influences and the dominant thematic concerns of his works.
The Grammar Detective
The sometimes confusing and less than interesting rules of grammar can be quite daunting or mind numbing. Where does one begin?... Most people, it seems, would like to have some knowledge of the rudimentary elements of grammar but are unsure of how to begin and would agree that grammar is a mystery. The Grammar Detective invites readers to come to grips with English grammar by solving a series of short murder mysteries, each of them illustrated. These are followed by further exercises-word searches, crosswords and puzzles-to help introduce and reinforce grammatical skills and knowledge. The book introduces aspects of grammar such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, clauses and phrases,and includes a variety of test exercises. It also demystifies punctuation, and explains periods, colons, semi-colons and speech marks. This fun and engaging book is an ideal introduction to English grammar for students, or a handy refresher course for those whose knowledge of grammar and punctuationis a little rusty.
An Across Walls Overview-study of Novels and Short Stories by Eighteen 20th Century English and American Authors
Paired writers examined include: Carson McCullers and Susan Hill; Walker Percy and Alan Sillitoe; Flannery O'Connor and Beryl Bainbridge; Ann Tyler and Anthony Burgess; Elizabeth Spencer and Melvyn Bragg; Wendell Berry and Jane Gardam; Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Troop; Bobby Ann Mason and Pat Barker; Doris Betts and Sue Townsend.
Understanding Will Self
Understanding Will Self introduces readers to the satire and expressive ingenuity of a British writer who has garnered an array of awards since the 1991 publication of his first short story collection, The Quantity Theory of Sanity. In this guide to the well-received but largely unstudied writer, M. Hunter Hayes examines the key themes, narrative strategies, and cultural commentaries that characterize Self's work. Through close textual analyses, Hayes guides readers through the alternative universe of Self's writing and maps the interplay between his forays into journalism and fiction. Marked by their combination of seemingly improbable events and quotidian details, Self's novels, novellas, and short stories examine contemporary English life through a mode of writing that he has aptly termed dirty magical realism. Hayes shows how recurring characters have evolved through successive works and in relation with their environments.
Understanding Tim Parks
"Fenwick reckons with Parks's full literary range, from his novels and nonfiction books to his translations and journalism, and sheds light on the work of a versatile English writer whose international recognition is steadily growing."--BOOK JACKET.
Understanding Beryl Bainbridge
"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. 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."--BOOK JACKET.
Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald
Peter Wolfe's study of Penelope Fitzgerald's canon illuminates writings he characterizes as possessing unerring dramatic judgment, a friendly and fluid style, and lyrical and precise descriptive passages. In this survey of Fitzgerald's life and career, Wolfe explains how the British novelist brings resources of talent and craft, thought and feeling, courage and vulnerability, to the biographies and novels that have earned her renown.
Understanding Anthony Powell
Nicholas Birns provides a fresh examination of the British writer's career and growing reputation in this introduction to his work. Birns takes a global view of Powell's corpus, situating his works in context and explaining his place among Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Henry Green, in the second generation of British modernists. Birns explains how Powell and his compatriots pioneered a "next wave" modernism in which experimentation and traditional narrative combined in a sustainable mode.
