Literature round-up

The Eighteenth-Century Literature Handbook

Editors: Gary Day and Bridget Keegan

Edition: First

Publisher: Continuum

Pages: 2

Price: £60.00 and £17.99

ISBN 9780826495228 and 5235

The impressive list of editors and contributors - leading scholars based in the UK and US - aim to provide an authoritative introduction to the literature and culture of the era via a comprehensive resource progressing from key information and guidance to the development of advanced critical skills. The collection considers authors, texts and contexts; offers guides to key critics, concepts and topics including issues of sexuality, gender and ethnicity; furnishes an overview of changes in the canon and critical landscape and directions of current research; and usefully details annotated further reading, including online resources.

Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England c. 1100-c. 1500

Editors: Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al

Edition: First

Publisher: York Medieval Press/ Boydell & Brewer

Pages: 560

Price: £50.00

ISBN 97819031537

Wogan-Browne and her co-editors and contributors consider the enduring influence of francophone culture in England in the Middle Ages. A range of essays propose a new cultural history focusing on the "Anglo-Norman" presence and interactions of French speakers, writers, texts and documents, with the aim of restoring a multicultural and multivocal England in all its complexity.

A Companion to Medieval Popular Romance

Editors: Raluca L. Radulescu and Cory James Rushton

Edition: First

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Pages: 224

Price: £50.00

ISBN 9781843841920

One of the most important literary forms of the Middle Ages - popular romance - is challenging to define, because its subject matter runs the gamut from chivalric adventure to monstrous metamorphoses and saints' lives. Contributors aim to offer a thorough definition of the genre and provide context, definitions and explanations. Topics examined include genre and classification, ethnicity, gender, orality and performance, metre and form, reception and printing culture.

British Women Poets of the Long Eighteenth Century: An Anthology

Editors: Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine E. Ingrassia

Edition: First

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Pages: 960

Price: £41.50 and £21.00

ISBN 97808018983 and 76

This collection of more than 300 poems by 80 women poets of the era, both canonical and little-known and many long out of print, demonstrates the diversity of poetry produced during this time. The editors group the works in three broad categories: by genre, by theme and by their focus on women's experience as writers.

Children's Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends

Editors: Heather Montgomery and Nicola J. Watson

Edition: First

Publisher: Open University Press/Palgrave Macmillan

Pages: 424

Price: £22.99

ISBN 97802302149

Aiming to offer students excellent critical material on a number of key classic and contemporary children's books, this collection provides case studies of literature across genres and ages, with detailed introductory material and essays by leading scholars. Works examined include Little Women, Peter Pan, Swallows and Amazons, Tom's Midnight Garden and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature: From the European Enlightenment to the Global Present

Editors: David Damrosch, Natalie Melas and Mbongiseni Buthelezi

Edition: First

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Pages: 458

Price: £44.95 and £20.95

ISBN 9780691132853 and 2846

An anthology of classic essays and significant recent work on the missions and methods of the rapidly evolving discipline of comparative literary studies, this sourcebook presents 32 pieces by authors ranging from Madame de Stael and Friedrich Nietzsche to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Franco Moretti. Manifestos and counter-arguments, essays in definition and debates on method aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the field via the work of some of its most important scholars.

Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative

Author: Mieke Bal

Edition: Third revised

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Pages: 256

Price: £16.95

ISBN 9780802096319

First published in English in 1985, this text's importance lies in its ability to offer a comprehensive introduction to the theory of narrative text. Bal offers a systematic account of narrative techniques and methods, their transmission and reception. The updated third edition includes analysis of film narratives and new sections treating a number of narratologically challenging modernist texts.

Why Poetry Matters

Author: Jay Parini

Edition: First

Publisher: Yale University Press

Pages: 224

Price: £9.99

ISBN 9780300151466

In this meditation, Parini, a writer and academic, acknowledges that poetry is unimportant to the majority of people in today's world, but argues that this most central art of Western civilisation still has the power to open minds and transform lives. Considering defences of poetry made by thinkers and practitioners from Aristotle and Longinus to Wordsworth and Shelley to T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost, he examines the poetic voice and metaphor and makes his case with passion and clarity.