New Arrivals: PR 1 - PR 9999
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© 2016,In this first substantive study of directing Shakespeare in the USA, Charles Ney compares and contrasts directors working at major companies across the country. Because of the complexities of directing Shakespeare for audiences today, a director's methods, values and biases are more readily perceptible in their work on Shakespeare than in more contemporary work. Directors disclose their interpretation of the text, their management of the various stages of production, how they go about supervising rehearsals and share tactics. This book will be useful to students wanting to develop skills, practitioners who want to learn from what other directors are doing, and scholars and students studying production practice and performance.
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© 2014,For actors both young and old, the prospect of preparing to perform a Shakespearean role can be intimidating...even terrifying! "Translating Shakespeare" seeks to make the actor's preparatory work on the Bard's plays both stimulating and fun by de-mystifying the experience. It offers step-by-step explanations of the fundamental processes involved in creative preparation: comparing edited texts, analyzing verse rhythms, identifying antitheses, and most importantly, helping the actor to find his or her own personal key to unlock the plays' contexts and circumstances in inspiring way.
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© 1997,The daughter of a wealthy railway magnate, Paula Power inherits De Stancy Castle, an ancient castle in need of modernization. She commissions George Somerset, a young architect, to undertake the work. Somerset falls in love with Paula but she, the Laodicean of the title, is torn between his admiration and that of Captain De Stancy, whose old-world romanticism contrasts with Somerset's forward-looking attitude. Paula's vacillation, however, is not only romantic. Her ambiguity regarding religion, politics and social progress is a reflection of the author's own. This new Penguin Classics edition of Hardy's text contains an introduction and notes that illuminate and clarify these themes, and draws parallels between the text and the author's life and views.
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© 2015,This compelling book chronicles a young boy's journey from the horrors of Jamaican slavery to the heart of London's literary world, and reveals the unlikely friendship that changed his life. Francis Barber, born in Jamaica, was brought to London by his owner in 1750 and became a servant in the household of the renowned Dr. Samuel Johnson. Although Barber left London for a time and served in the British navy during the Seven Years' War, he later returned to Johnson's employ. A fascinating reversal took place in the relationship between the two men as Johnson's health declined and the older man came to rely more and more upon his now educated and devoted companion. When Johnson died he left the bulk of his estate to Barber, a generous (and at the time scandalous) legacy, and a testament to the depth of their friendship. There were thousands of black Britons in the eighteenth century, but few accounts of their lives exist. In uncovering Francis Barber's story, this book not only provides insights into his life and Samuel Johnson's but also opens a window onto London when slaves had yet to win their freedom. -
© 2015,One of the most common--and wounding--misconceptions about literary scholars today is that they simply don't love books. While those actually working in literary studies can easily refute this claim, such a response risks obscuring a more fundamental question: why should they? That question led Deidre Shauna Lynch into the historical and cultural investigation of Loving Literature . How did it come to be that professional literary scholars are expected not just to study, but to love literature, and to inculcate that love in generations of students? What Lynch discovers is that books, and the attachments we form to them, have played a vital role in the formation of private life--that the love of literature, in other words, is deeply embedded in the history of literature. Yet at the same time, our love is neither self-evident nor ahistorical: our views of books as objects of affection have clear roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publishing, reading habits, and domestic history. While never denying the very real feelings that warm our relationship to books, Loving Literature nonetheless serves as a riposte to those who use the phrase "the love of literature" as if its meaning were transparent. Lynch writes, "It is as if those on the side of love of literature had forgotten what literary texts themselves say about love's edginess and complexities." With this masterly volume, Lynch restores those edges and allows us to revel in those complexities.
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© 2016,Shakespeare lived when knowledge of plants and their uses was a given, but also at a time of unique interest in plants and gardens. His lifetime saw the beginning of scientific interest in plants, the first large-scale plant introductions from outside the country since Roman times, and the beginning of gardening as a leisure activity. Shakespeare's works show that he engaged with this new world to illuminate so many facets of his plays and poems. This dictionary offers a complete companion to Shakespeare's references to landscape, plants and gardens, including both formal and rural settings. It covers plants and flowers, gardening terms, and the activities that Shakespeare included within both cultivated and uncultivated landscapes as well as encompassing garden imagery in relation to politics, the state and personal lives. Each alphabetical entry offers a definition and overview of the term discussed in its historical context, followed by a guided tour of its use in Shakespeare's works and finally an extensive bibliography, including primary and secondary sources, books and articles.
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© 2015,This compelling book chronicles a young boy's journey from the horrors of Jamaican slavery to the heart of London's literary world, and reveals the unlikely friendship that changed his life. Francis Barber, born in Jamaica, was brought to London by his owner in 1750 and became a servant in the household of the renowned Dr. Samuel Johnson. Although Barber left London for a time and served in the British navy during the Seven Years' War, he later returned to Johnson's employ. A fascinating reversal took place in the relationship between the two men as Johnson's health declined and the older man came to rely more and more upon his now educated and devoted companion. When Johnson died he left the bulk of his estate to Barber, a generous (and at the time scandalous) legacy, and a testament to the depth of their friendship. There were thousands of black Britons in the eighteenth century, but few accounts of their lives exist. In uncovering Francis Barber's story, this book not only provides insights into his life and Samuel Johnson's but also opens a window onto London when slaves had yet to win their freedom.
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© 2015,One of the most common--and wounding--misconceptions about literary scholars today is that they simply don't love books. While those actually working in literary studies can easily refute this claim, such a response risks obscuring a more fundamental question: why should they? That question led Deidre Shauna Lynch into the historical and cultural investigation of Loving Literature . How did it come to be that professional literary scholars are expected not just to study, but to love literature, and to inculcate that love in generations of students? What Lynch discovers is that books, and the attachments we form to them, have played a vital role in the formation of private life--that the love of literature, in other words, is deeply embedded in the history of literature. Yet at the same time, our love is neither self-evident nor ahistorical: our views of books as objects of affection have clear roots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publishing, reading habits, and domestic history. While never denying the very real feelings that warm our relationship to books, Loving Literature nonetheless serves as a riposte to those who use the phrase "the love of literature" as if its meaning were transparent. Lynch writes, "It is as if those on the side of love of literature had forgotten what literary texts themselves say about love's edginess and complexities." With this masterly volume, Lynch restores those edges and allows us to revel in those complexities.
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© 2016,Shakespeare lived when knowledge of plants and their uses was a given, but also at a time of unique interest in plants and gardens. His lifetime saw the beginning of scientific interest in plants, the first large-scale plant introductions from outside the country since Roman times, and the beginning of gardening as a leisure activity. Shakespeare's works show that he engaged with this new world to illuminate so many facets of his plays and poems. This dictionary offers a complete companion to Shakespeare's references to landscape, plants and gardens, including both formal and rural settings. It covers plants and flowers, gardening terms, and the activities that Shakespeare included within both cultivated and uncultivated landscapes as well as encompassing garden imagery in relation to politics, the state and personal lives. Each alphabetical entry offers a definition and overview of the term discussed in its historical context, followed by a guided tour of its use in Shakespeare's works and finally an extensive bibliography, including primary and secondary sources, books and articles.
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© 1995,When the young nobleman Harold Transome returns to England from the colonies with a self-made fortune, he scandalizes the town of Treby Magna with his decision to stand for Parliament as a Radical. But after the idealistic Felix Holt also returns to the town, the difference between Harold's opportunistic values and Holt's profound beliefs becomes apparent. Forthright, brusque and driven by a firm desire to educate the working-class, Felix is at first viewed with suspicion by many, including the elegant but vain Esther Lyon, the daughter of the local clergyman. As she discovers, however, his blunt words conceal both passion and deep integrity. Soon the romantic and over-refined Esther finds herself overwhelmed by a heart-wrenching decision: whether to choose the wealthy Transome as a husband, or the impoverished but honest Felix Holt.
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© 1995,This collection of writings features the complete text of Beckford's best-known book, Vathek . Beckford's talent for satire emerges in selections from Biographical Memoirs , a collection of essays on imaginary artists, and the novel Azemia, a scathing attack on British politics.
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© 2016,From the unbending belief in invisible powers that animates Till We Have Faces to the depiction of Aslan's sacrifice and resurrection in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis's writing has sparked intense debate about the presence and function of religion in his works. Today, a reader's opinion of Lewis is more often than not based on his or her perspectives on religion. In Reading C. S. Lewis, Wesley A. Kort examines Lewis's work as a whole, investigating why and at what points Lewis turns to religion-and particularly to Christianity-in order to advance his arguments. Kort moves through more than a dozen of Lewis's major books, providing a useful guide to their various elements while connecting readers to the literary contexts that influenced the works and Lewis himself. Reading C. S. Lewis examines the standing of Lewis's work, how best to approach the books, and the misunderstandings that lead to mistaken readings. The commentaries also function as free-standing essays that can be read individually and in any order. Reading C. S. Lewis: A Commentary sets a new standard for C. S. Lewis studies. A comprehensive examination of the major Lewis texts, this volume is a captivating look into the author's work from a refreshingly undogmatic point of view.
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© 2015,In Jane Austen's works, a name is never just a name. In fact, the names Austen gives her characters and places are as rich in subtle meaning as her prose itself. Wiltshire, for example, the home county of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey , is a clue that this heroine is not as stupid as she seems: according to legend, cunning Wiltshire residents caught hiding contraband in a pond capitalized on a reputation for ignorance by claiming they were digging up a "big cheese"--the moon's reflection on the water's surface. It worked. In Jane Austen's Names, Margaret Doody offers a fascinating and comprehensive study of all the names of people and places--real and imaginary--in Austen's fiction. Austen's creative choice of names reveals not only her virtuosic talent for riddles and puns. Her names also pick up deep stories from English history, especially the various civil wars, and the blood-tinged differences that played out in the reign of Henry VIII, a period to which she often returns. Considering the major novels alongside unfinished works and juvenilia, Doody shows how Austen's names signal class tensions as well as regional, ethnic, and religious differences. We gain a new understanding of Austen's technique of creative anachronism, which plays with and against her skillfully deployed realism--in her books, the conflicts of the past swirl into the tensions of the present, transporting readers beyond the Regency. Full of insight and surprises for even the most devoted Janeite, Jane Austen's Names will revolutionize how we read Austen's fiction.
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© 2014,Provides a thorough history of British and North American children's literature from the 17th century to the present day Now fully revised and updated, this new edition includes: *nbsp;a new chapter on illustrated and picture books (and includesnbsp;8 illustrations); *nbsp;an expanded glossary; * an updated further reading section. Children's Literature traces the development of the main genres of children's books one by one, including fables, fantasy, adventure stories, moral tales, family stories, school stories, children's poetry and illustrated and picture books. Grenby shows how these forms have evolved over 300 years and asks why most children's books, even today, continue to fall into one or other of these generic categories. Combining detailed analysis of particular key texts and a broad survey of hundreds of books written and illustrated for children, this volume considers both long forgotten and still famous titles, as well as the new classics of the genre - all of them loved by children and adults alike, but also fascinating and challenging for the critic and cultural historian. Key Features *nbsp;Broad historical range *nbsp;Coverage of neglected as well as well-known texts *nbsp;Focus on the main genres of children's literature *nbsp;Thoroughly up-to-date in terms of primary texts and critical material
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© 2008,This fascinating book by one of Britain's most acclaimed Shakespeare scholars explores the extraordinary staying-power of the world's most famous dramatist. Bate opens by taking up questions of authorship and then goes on to trace Shakespeare's canonization and near-deification, examining not only the uniqueness of his status among English-speaking readers but also his effect on literary cultures across the globe. Ambitious, wide-ranging, and historically rich, this book shapes a provocative inquiry into the nature of genius as it ponders the legacy of a talent unequalled in English letters. A bold and meticulous work of scholarship, The Genius of Shakespeare is also lively and accessibly written and will appeal to any reader who has marveled at the Bard and the enduring power of his work. This tenth anniversary edition has a new twenty-page afterword that addresses the renewed interest in Shakespeare and recent film adaptations of his most celebrated works.
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© 2015,The popular romances of medieval England are fantasy stories of love at first sight; brave knights seeking adventure; evil stewards; passionate, lusty women; hand-to-hand combat; angry dragons; and miracles. They are not only fun but indicate a great deal about the ideals and values of the society they were written in. Yet the genre of Middle English romance has only recently begun to attain critical respectability, dismissed as "vayn carpynge" in its own age and generally treated by twentieth-century critics as a junk-food form of medieval literature. Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas has been assumed to be a satire of the romances' cliched formulas and unskilled authors. But the romances evidently enjoyed popularity among all English classes, and the genre itself continued to flourish and evolve down to present-day novels and movies. Whatever Chaucer and his contemporaries thought of romances, they would have needed some personal familiarity with the stories and texts for comic tales such as Sir Thopas to be understood.A century ago, Beowulf faced the same problem that the Middle English romances still face: no modern translations were published because few had heard of the poem- because there were no modern translations published. Where the romances have been printed, they have normally been reproduced as critical editions in their original language, or translated into heavily abridged children's versions, but few have been published as scholarly close line translations with notes. This book is an attempt to remedy this by making some of these romances available to the student or lay reader who lacks specialized knowledge of Middle English, with the hope that a clearer understanding of the poems will encourage not only enjoyment but also further study.
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© 2016,Oliver Goldsmith arrived in England in 1756 a penniless Irishman. He toiled for years in the anonymity of Grub Streetâe"already a synonym for impoverished hack writersâe"before he became one of literary Londonâe(tm)s most celebrated authors. Norma Clarke tells the extraordinary story of this destitute scribbler turned gentleman of letters as it unfolds in the early days of commercial publishing, when writersâe(tm) livelihoods came to depend on the reading public, not aristocratic patrons. Clarke examines a network of writers radiating outward from Goldsmith: the famous and celebrated authors of Dr. Johnsonâe(tm)s âeoeClubâe and those far less fortunate âeoebrothers of the quillâe trapped in Grub Street. Clarke emphasizes Goldsmithâe(tm)s sense of himself as an Irishman, showing that many of his early literary acquaintances were Irish émigrés: Samuel Derrick, John Pilkington, Paul Hiffernan, and Edward Purdon. These writers tutored Goldsmith in the ways of Grub Street, and their influence on his development has not previously been explored. Also Irish was the patron he acquired after 1764, Robert Nugent, Lord Clare. Clarke places Goldsmith in the tradition of Anglo-Irish satirists beginning with Jonathan Swift. He transmuted troubling truths about the British Empire into forms of fable and nostalgia whose undertow of Irish indignation remains perceptible, if just barely, beneath an equanimous English surface. To read Brothers of the Quill is to be taken by the hand into the darker corners of eighteenth-century Grub Street, and to laugh and cry at the absurdities of the writing life.
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© 2005,One of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative novels, Romola is set in Renaissance Florence during the turbulent years following the expulsion of the powerful Medici family during which the zealous religious reformer Savonarola rose to control the city. At its heart is Romola, the devoted daughter of a blind scholar, married to the clever but ultimately treacherous Tito whose duplicity in both love and politics threatens to destroy everything she values, and she must break away to find her own path in life. Described by Eliot as 'written with my best blood', the story of Romola's intellectual and spiritual awakening is a compelling portrayal of a Utopian heroine, played out against a turbulent historical backdrop.
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© 2014,Published fifty years after the premiere of Entertaining Mr Sloane in 1964, and with a new introduction, this anniversary edition offers an opportunity to reappraise Joe Orton's reputation, and the status of his first major play, from a twenty-first century perspective. When it first appeared in the Swinging Sixties, Orton's satire on social and sexual hypocrisy both scandalized and delighted audiences. Its mix of sexuality and violence was explosive. Within a year, the play was being performed around the world and went on to be adapted for film and television, establishing Orton as a major voice and this play as one of the most ground-breaking of the century. This anniversary edition features previously unpublished material from the Joe Orton Archive, an interview with director Nick Bagnall, and an introduction by Emma Parker, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leicester.
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© 2015,The figure of the child and the imaginative and emotional capacities associated with children have always been sites of lively contestation for readers and critics of Dickens. In Dickens and the Imagined Child, leading scholars explore the function of the child and childhood within Dickens's imagination and reflect on the cultural resonance of his engagement with this topic. Part I of the collection examines the Dickensian child as both characteristic type and particular example, proposing a typology of the Dickensian child that is followed by discussions of specific children in Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House. Part II focuses on the relationship between childhood and memory, by examining the various ways in which the child's-eye view was reabsorbed into Dickens's mature sensibility. The essays in Part III focus upon reading and writing as particularly significant aspects of childhood experience; from Dickens's childhood reading of tales of adventure, they move to discussion of the child readers in his novels and finally to a consideration of his own early writings alongside those that his children contributed to the Gad's Hill Gazette. The collection therefore builds a picture of the remembered experiences of childhood being realised anew, both by Dickens and through his inspiring example, in the imaginative creations that they came to inform. While the protagonist of David Copperfield-that 'favourite child' among Dickens's novels-comes to think of his childhood self as something which he 'left behind upon the road of life', for Dickens himself, leafing continually through his own back pages, there can be no putting away of childish things.
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© 2014,Through theologically-engaged close readings of her poetry and devotional prose, this book explores how Christina Rossetti draws on the Bible and encourages her Victorian readers to respond to its radical message of grace. Structured chronologically, each chapter investigates her participation in the formation of Tractarian theology and details how her interpretative strategies changed over the course of her lifetime. Revealing how her encounter with the biblical text is informed by devotional classics, Christina Rossetti and the Bible highlights the influence of Thomas a' Kempis, John Bunyan, George Herbert and John Donne and describes how Rossetti adapted the teaching of the Ancient and Patristic Fathers and medieval mystics. It also considers the interfaces that are established between her devotional poems and the anthology and periodical pieces alongside which they were published throughout the second half of the nineteenth-century.
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© 2015,A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse contains the Old English texts of all the major short poems, such as 'The Battle of Maldon', 'The Dream of the Rood', 'The Wanderer' and 'The Seafarer', as well as a generous representation of the many important fragments, riddles and gnomic verses that survive from the seventh to the twelfth centuries, with facing-page verse translations. These poems are the well-spring of the English poetic tradition, and this anthology provides a unique window into the mind and culture of the Anglo-Saxons. The volume is an essential companion to Faber's edition of Beowulf , translated by Seamus Heaney.
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© 2014,"The trilogy is trying to tell something about the parts of war that don't get into the official accounts" -Pat Barker The first book of the Regeneration Trilogy and a Booker Prize nominee In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's "sanity" and sending him back to the trenches. This novel tells what happened as only a novel can. It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired. It is a story of a battle for a man's mind in which only the reader can decide who is the victor, who the vanquished, and who the victim. One of the most amazing feats of fiction of our time, Regneration has been hailed by critics across the globe. As August 2014 marks the 100-year anniversary of World War I, this book is as timely and relevant as ever.
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© 2016,THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "This year's most erotic novel makes Fifty Shades look like the Bible. . . . Bound to be the It beach book of the summer." -- New York Post By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a prestigious London art house. By night, she's a hostess at one of the capital's notorious champagne bars, although her work there pales against her activities on nights off. TO GET WHAT SHE WANTS Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She's transformed her accent and taught herself about wine and the correct use of a dessert fork, not to mention the art of discretion. She's learned to be a good girl. But when Judith is fired for uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world--and her honest efforts at a better life are destroyed--she turns to a long-neglected friend. A friend who kept her chin up and back straight through every slight: Rage. SHE WILL CROSS EVERY LINE Feeling reckless, she accompanies one of the champagne bar's biggest clients to the French Riviera, only to find herself alone again after a fatal accident. Tired of striving and the slow crawl to the top, Judith has a realization: If you need to turn yourself into someone else, loneliness is a good place to start. And she's been lonely a long time. Maestra is a glamorous, ferocious thriller and the beginning of a razor-sharp trilogy that introduces the darkly irresistible Judith Rashleigh, a femme fatale for the ages whose vulnerability and ruthlessness will keep you guessing until the last page.
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© 2014,Through theologically-engaged close readings of her poetry and devotional prose, this book explores how Christina Rossetti draws on the Bible and encourages her Victorian readers to respond to its radical message of grace. Structured chronologically, each chapter investigates her participation in the formation of Tractarian theology and details how her interpretative strategies changed over the course of her lifetime. Revealing how her encounter with the biblical text is informed by devotional classics, Christina Rossetti and the Bible highlights the influence of Thomas a' Kempis, John Bunyan, George Herbert and John Donne and describes how Rossetti adapted the teaching of the Ancient and Patristic Fathers and medieval mystics. It also considers the interfaces that are established between her devotional poems and the anthology and periodical pieces alongside which they were published throughout the second half of the nineteenth-century.