Customer Reviews (1)

Delivers 500 years in 140 pages: a brisk survey
This 140-page text, with nearly a hundred pictures, gives a brisk overview of the past five hundred years of Welsh writing in English. On pg. 16. Mathias, a noted poet and editor of the "Anglo-Welsh Review," defines his topic: "it implies no mixture of blood" but "it describes those writers who by birth or strong family derivation and residence were Welsh but who, whether from necessity or choice, wrote in English." Today, of course, anyone in Wales chooses to write in one of its two languages. In the beginning, starting in the Tudor period and increasing after the Union of 1536, when Welsh historians and poets first penned texts in English in appreciable numbers they tended to emphasize dutifully the loyalty of the Welsh to the Crown. They concocted stories assuring Britons that those enthroned at Westminster traced their roots to Brutus the Trojan and then to a Welsh monarchy.

Since then, many of those included here tended to explain their country, adopted or native, to the English. The foreignness of Wales could be mined for pathos, praise, satire, stereotype, and romance. The difficulty, as Mathias charts, lay in the fact that much of Wales over the past few centuries lay off limits to most writers in English who lived in the Principality, unless they knew both languages, and few could navigate both tongues with equal facility. Most, and this tendency perhaps grows in the past half-century, exaggerate the strangeness supposedly left in Cambria with an eye towards a London publisher, and a wider audience eager for stock characters, timeworn platitudes, and manufactured lore.

The most intriguing recent authors among admittedly a vastly disparate lot united only by geography remain such as the formidably learned but intriguingly erudite David Jones, who Mathias places within a 'second movement' along with Emyr Humphries' fiction, R.S. Thomas' verse, and perhaps the much less known poems by Raymond Garlick. These writers sought a reapproachment with the older, fading literary culture that emphasized communal duty rather than merely channelling one's muse. Mathias contrasts this disciplined mid-century faction against a 'first movement' sparked by the Joyce-like portraits of a religiously constricted and morally corrupt village that brought Caradoc Evans his first fame in 1915, and then flamed into the laments of Richard Llewelyn, Gwyn Thomas, Alexander Cordell, and others who sought in rural depictions and coal-pit descriptions a vital Welsh sensibility grounded in the peasant and the proletariat. Above all, the talented Dylan Thomas voiced his own alienation from the Welsh tradition in a language he never learned, while echoing its cadences in verbose and dazzling wordplay.

The shadow of Thomas, as Joyce for Irish writers, casts a long stretch across the second half of the past century. Mathias scans the results, and nods at Raymond Williams, John Cowper Powys, and Richard Hughes for their uses of their Welshness. He accurately observes of a less remembered author: "Menna Gallie, who wrote three spirited novels-- beginning with Strike for a Kingdom (1959) -- never adequately followed them up." (118) Gallie's predicament appears common among the later writers Mathias mentions. He finds that the most successful writing (and this book appeared in 1986) comes from criticism such as Ned Thomas' "The Welsh Extremist" and Glyn Jones' "The Dragon Has Two Tongues," as well as Raymond Williams' literary and political criticism, not to forget Kenneth Morgan and Gwyn A. Williams' histories.

In a society so anglophonic today, can the hyphen of Mathias' title still matter? He suggests that for the 'first' and 'second' movements, a counter-movement away from anglicization lingered. The 'first' usually, "involuntarily or otherwise, had an acquaintance with the then receding Welsh language and the different culture that had flourished within it,"-- that of the Nonconformist combination of radical politics and literary craft which since the mid-18th century enabled Welsh people in villages and then cities to keep moored to their legacy, much as they may have resented it, it did keep them informed of an alternative. The writers of the 'second' movement, within which I'd transfer the late J.C. Powys along with R.S. Thomas-- reconnected their own severed strands to the Cymric inheritance. But, now, Mathias argues, the involvement with the Welsh end of the hyphenated identity appears purely a matter of one's own preference.

I interpret this attitude as follows. Many live not in Wales except as a postal address-- they see themselves as part of the United Kingdom or Great Britain. The names of their towns may seem nearly as remote as the Indian terms common across so many of the United States. There's no committment for nearly all but a few idiosyncratic residents of a land occupied by a people who've invaded and taken over another nation to learn the atavistic language or master the cultural remnants, if any exist outside of museums and monographs.

Mathias concludes that since 1950 and especially 1965 ("when the latest of the older writers emerged" from his mid-1980s perspective) the standstill of Welsh at least halted its rural erosion with an urban and school-based revival. (Same as Irish has in the past few years, perhaps, although I'd say the Gaeltacht and the Welsh-speaking enclaves both continue to decline under the pressure of both anglicized tourism and the dependence of the economy on incomers.) He wonders, in fact, if the move towards reclaiming Welsh leaves many learners too optimistically thinking they should try to write by that language's "demanding standard" when sticking to their native English'd be a wiser option and ensure the continued creativity they could bring to their work by their native means of expression. As of nearly a quarter-century ago, then, Mathias ends his reflections doubting that "Anglo-Welsh" can continue to matter as the nostalgia's vanished, the village's modernized, and the shibboleth of not being truly Welsh without a command of Cymraeg continues to shut out so many emerging citizens of Wales who have no "poor but romantic past" in either language to return to, or who wish such a retreat from modern reality.
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Product Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1900 edition by T. Fisher Unwin, London. ... Read more

Book Description
The classic survey of English literature in a vibrant new edition, with Stephen Greenblatt as general editor.

A legendary bestseller for more than forty years, The Norton Anthology of English Literature is the classic survey to the field from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. With more than ninety authors, the Major Authors Edition deepens its representation of essential works in all genres, ranging from Seamus Heaney's award-winning translation of Beowulf and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to the greats of the nineteenth century—Blake and Wordsworth, Tennyson and Barrett Browning—to twentieth-century classics of a truly global English literature—Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, poetry by Derek Walcott, and prose by Nadine Gordimer and Salman Rushdie, to name but a few. Color plates—over seventy-five in all—bring to life the cultural concerns of each period. Concise glosses and annotations, period introductions, biographical headnotes, timelines, and selected bibliographies help readers understand and enjoy the rich diversity of English literature. ... Read more

Book Description
The classic survey of English literature in a vibrant new edition, with Stephen Greenblatt as general editor.

A legendary bestseller for more than forty years, The Norton Anthology of English Literature is the classic survey to the field from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. With more than ninety authors, the Major Authors Edition deepens its representation of essential works in all genres, ranging from Seamus Heaney's award-winning translation of Beowulf and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to the greats of the nineteenth century—Blake and Wordsworth, Tennyson and Barrett Browning—to twentieth-century classics of a truly global English literature—Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, poetry by Derek Walcott, and prose by Nadine Gordimer and Salman Rushdie, to name but a few. Color plates—over seventy-five in all—bring to life the cultural concerns of each period. Concise glosses and annotations, period introductions, biographical headnotes, timelines, and selected bibliographies help readers understand and enjoy the rich diversity of English literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

WARNING! THIS MAY NOT BE THE BOOK YOU NEED!
This is for The Norton Anthology of English Literature: THE MAJOR AUTHORS Volume B. It is NOT from the standard sequence of The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volume B SHOULD BE subtitled "The Early Modern Period" or something along those lines. This is NOT "The Early Modern Period." Amazon either does not carry "The Early Modern Period" or has mislabeled that book as well. Again, this is for THE MAJOR AUTHORS NOT THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD!

Wasn't what I thought I was ordering.
This book isn't "The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B", it's The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors Volume B.

By the time I realized they had sent the wrong book, I had already removed the shrink wrap that says you can't return the book if you've removed it.

I was very upset. I can't afford to just throw away forty dollars. I won't be ordering any books from Amazon in the future. ... Read more

Book Description
From folk ballads to film scripts, this new five-volume encyclopedia covers the entire history of British literature from the seventh century to the present, focusing on the writers and the major texts of what are now the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.In five hundred substantial essays written by major scholars, the Encyclopedia of British Literature includes biographies of nearly four hundred individual authors and a hundred topical essays with detailed analyses of particular themes, movements, genres, and institutions whose impact upon the writing or the reading of literature was significant.An ideal companion to The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, this set will prove invaluable for students, scholars, and general readers.For more information, including a complete table of contents and list of contributors, please visit www.oup.com/us/ebl ... Read more

Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is an essential introduction to this most enigmatic of writers. These newly commissioned essays from an international team of contributors comprise a general overview of all of Thomas Hardy's work and specific demonstrations of his ideas and literary skills. Individual essays explore Hardy's biography, aesthetics, his famous attachment to Wessex, and the impact on his work of developments in science, religion and philosophy in the late-nineteenth century. The volume also contains a detailed chronology of Hardy's life, and a guide to further reading. ... Read more

Book Description
While poetry has been the genre most closely associated with the Romantic period, the novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has attracted many more readers and students in recent years. Its canon has been widened to include less well known authors alongside Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Maria Edgeworth and Thomas Love Peacock. Over the last generation, especially, a remarkable range of popular works from the period have been re-discovered and reread intensively. This Companion offers an overview of British fiction written between roughly the mid-1760s and the early 1830s and is an ideal guide to the major authors, historical and cultural contexts, and later critical reception. The contributors to this volume represent the most up-to-date directions in scholarship, charting the ways in which the period's social, political and intellectual redefinitions created new fictional subjects, forms and audiences. ... Read more

Book Description
This illustrated and fully updated third edition is the most authoritative and international survey of world literature in English available. Covering everything from Old English to contemporary writing from all over the English-speaking world, the new edition has been brought completely up to date with more than 280 new author entries, most of which are for living authors. The general reader will find the volume a fascinating reference to browse through and to discover many new writers and works, while students will find it an invaluable resource for daily use. Previous Edition (1994) 0-521-44086-6 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An impressive reference book
Since I am the first to review this book, it is important that I let you know just how much information is in here.

Writers - poets, novelists, playwrights, theologians, philosophers, economists, naturalists, scientists, essayists, critics, and historians

Individual plays, poems, novels, and other works

Literary groups or schools - I.E. the Lake Poets, the Beats, the Movement, and the Black Mountain School

Wider literary movements - I.E. neoclassicism, Romanticism, modernism, and post modernism

Critical schools or movements - I.E. the New Criticism, structuralism, post structuralism, deconstruction, and ethical criticism

Literary genres - I.E. comedy, and tragedy, fable, farce and melodrama

Poetic forms and sub-genres of drama and fiction - I.E. acrostic, the elegy, the revenge tragedy, and the Gothic novel

Critical terms - I.E. metaphor, symbol, dialogism, intertextuality, and unreliable narrator

Rhetorical terms - I.E. anaphora, bathos, chiasmus, synecdoche, and zeugma

Theaters and theater companies - I.E. the Globe, the King's Men, the Federal Theater Project, and the Sistren Theater Collective

Literary magazines - I.E. The Quarterly Review and Punch, The New Masses, and Staffrider

So, as you can see, the list is quite extensive, helpful, and interesting.

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Book Description
Offering readers key women's writings from the eighth century to the present, this global and multicultural anthology includes selections written in English by women from Great Britain and the U.S. as well as Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Croatia, Ghana, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa.Organized thematically, the anthology emphasizes five important topics for women writers finding a voice, writing the body, rethinking the maternal, identity and difference, and resistance and transformation. Pivotal works of feminist theory by Woolf, Cixous, Showalter, hooks, Trinh, and others are also included.For those interested in women's literature. ... Read more

Book Description
The novel is modernism's most vital and experimental genre. In this Companion leading critics explore the very significant pleasures of reading modernist novels, but also demonstrate how and why reading modernist fiction can be difficult. No one technique or style defines a novel as modernist. Instead, these essays explain the formal innovations, stylistic preferences and thematic concerns which unite modernist fiction. They also show how modernist novels relate to other forms of art, and to the social and cultural context from which they emerged. Alongside chapters on prominent novelists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, as well as lesser-known authors such as Dorothy Richardson and Djuna Barnes, themes such as genre and geography, time and consciousness are discussed in detail. With a chronology and guide to further reading, this is the most accessible and informative overview of the genre available. ... Read more

Book Description

Arguing that the major hallmarks of Romantic literature--inwardness, emphasis on subjectivity, the individual authorship of selves and texts--were forged during the Enlightenment, Rajani Sudan traces the connections between literary sensibility and British encounters with those persons, ideas, and territories that lay uneasily beyond the national border. The urge to colonize and discover embraced both an interest in foreign "fair exotics" and a deeply rooted sense of their otherness.

Fair Exotics develops a revisionist reading of the period of the British Enlightenment and Romanticism, an age during which England was most aggressively building its empire. By looking at canonical texts, including Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Johnson's Dictionary, De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and Bronte's Villette, Sudan shows how the imaginative subject is based on a sense of exoticism created by a pervasive fear of what is foreign. Indeed, as Sudan clarifies, xenophobia is the underpinning not only of nationalism and imperialism but of Romantic subjectivity as well.

Book Description
This collection presents the finest English literature from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century, with introductory matter and authoritative annotation.Almost three hundred illustrations show the relationship between images in language and in pictures.In addition to the two volume set, it is also available in six paperbound volumes covering major periods. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Stranded On A Desert Island? Take These 2 Volumes Along!
Someone once asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island, and could have one book with me, which would I choose? Easy answer - "The Oxford Anthology of English Literature." Actually, it's a two volume set - but I am designating the two volumes as one book, for desert island convenience.

This extraordinary 4,500 page collection contains Great Britain's finest literature from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Included are selections from "Beowulf," Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," works by Spenser (excerpts from all books of "The Faerie Queene"), Sir Thomas Malory, Shakespeare (including "The Tempest'), Marlowe ("Dr. Faustus," "Hero and Leander"), John Donne, and Milton. There are over 100 pages devoted to William Blake, including "The Book of Thel," and the entire "Night the Ninth" from "The Four Zoas." It also contains poems and prose by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron. And this is just a small sample.

In addition to the general editors Frank Kermode and John Hollander, the anthology has been edited and annotated by Harold Bloom, Martin Price, J.B. Trapp, and Lionel Trilling. The editors contribute brief period introductions, biographical and critical pieces for major authors, and essays preceding the major selections.

There are almost 300 wonderful illustrations included in the collection, representing important artists and their works for each period, that demonstrate the relationship between literary and visual images.

I have read through this wonderful anthology many times over the years, and never fail to learn something new, something to excite my imagination, with each reading. Highest Kudos!
JANA

This is the one
I still have my incredibly beloved and beat-up copy from college days at Syracuse University; along with my "Complete Works of Shakespeare" (ed. Bevington)and Lumiansky's translation of"Canterbury Tales," this is one of those books I'll NEVER let go;if I had it with me on a desert island, I wouldn't mind being alone for afew years.It's got everything you could ask for from English lit., withexcellent footnotes and introductory materials.A real treasure trove, anda must for anyone who really wants to start digging into the major Westernwriters -- yeah, those dead white guys; not so popular anymore -- just theones who hold up the pillars of Western civilization! ... Read more

Book Description
A legendary bestseller for more than forty years, this is the classic survey to the field from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century.

With 274 authors, the Eighth Edition deepens its representation of essential works in all genres, ranging from Seamas Heaney's award-winning translation of Beowulf, Milton's Paradise Lost, and More's Utopia to the great poets and prose writers of the nineteenth century—Blake and Austen, Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson and Barrett Browning—to twentieth-century classics of a truly global English literature—Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and Friel's Translations, to name but a few. Color plates—over 75 in all—and thematic clusters of brief and historically significant texts bring to life the cultural concerns of each period. Concise glosses and annotations, period introductions, biographical headnotes, timelines, and selected bibliographies help readers understand and enjoy the rich diversity of English literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Thanks!
Purchased as a set with Volume 2 (great idea by the way to package them for one low price).Came just in time, great study tool for class, as I'm an English major.

Required Textbook
This was a required textbook for a college course. Once again I saved $$$$ by buying my textbooks, new and used, at Amazon and another major on-line auction house. Why anyone would line up like lemmings to get slaughter by the high prices and poor service at college bookstores is beyond my meager comprehension. While everyone else was spending hours in line holding 20 pounds of books, I was one clicking and having my books in a couple days.

Ahh! Get a cup of tea, find a cozy spot, and settle in...
If you're a book lover, how can you not love a book like this? It was my required reading for a literature class, and I was all too happy to have an excuse to buy it. Satisfyingly fat at 3000 pages, it exudes that delicious book smell when you flip through it, and its matte-sheen cover feels good in your hands and protects its sizable contents quite well.

For me, this was worth getting just for Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf. You can smell the ocean and hear the armor clank as this readable version places you right there in the sixth century. Along with the usual excerpts from such works as the Canterbury Tales, you get complete versions of King Lear, Twelfth Night, Utopia, and Paradise Lost. After looking over the excerpts from Gulliver's Travels, it appears that sections 1,2, and 4 are presented complete, with only some material edited from section 3, so you get almost all of that, too. The footnotes for this, and all the other works, are enormously useful.

I have a few gripes about the book, however these don't merit the subtraction of a star in the rating. First - this book is SO heavy. Obviously there was no way around this in publishing, because to put this many pages on good-quality paper the laws of physics are working against you. But I have literally suffered backache from bringing it around with me in my book bag, and have had to sorrowfully leave it at home at times because of this. Second, I wish it included a clear list of which major works are presented complete, for those of us who want to make sure to read the whole thing. My final beef is with the editorial introduction to The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale from the Canterbury Tales. Reading this rant about "antifeminist writings" was like stepping from the high halls of classic academia into the junior-college classroom of some washed-up 1970s holdover. I HATE agenda in my education, and in my opinion, applying 20th century (yes, 20th) sentiments to 14th century literature is anachronistic and inappropriate. But such is the state of education these days, and here is your evidence in a volume that should have known better. However, that has been the only thing I have come upon that irritated me.

Buying this book is a great way to get a bunch of classics all at once, and there is so much to it that you can enjoy a long read or a short read anytime you want, once you find a way to work around its mass. I look forward to the years of reading pleasure I'll get from my copy.

One big book.
There seems to be nothing wrong or displeasing about this book aside from its overall dimensions. The stories are assembled well. There is even a nice history about the authors in some instances. Like I said previous, its one gigantic book. I think it would have been perfect to maybe cut it in half, labling them "volume 1a" and "volume 1b". Oh well, its still a pretty good book.

30% saved
I saved at least 30% on this book compaird to the schools' bookstore asking price. ... Read more

Book Description
Read by millions of students over seven editions, The Norton Anthology of English Literature remains the most trusted undergraduate survey of English literature available and one of the most successful college texts ever published. Firmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies—thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible—The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones. Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not the greatest in question types
As someone who has already sat for this test and is studying to do better, I can honestly say that this book's questions do not even match the format of the real test questions.I even came across a question asking anatomical questions regarding voice.This is not a biology test!Another favorite in this book is a statement with answer options such as 1&2, 1&2&3, 3&4, etc.These questions are hardly ever (if at all) on the test.In addition, so far the authors/books mentioned are for the most part really obscure and don't really make an appearance on the exam.I have purchased every single test prep title (including out of print ones) for this test and sat for the real one.This book by far is way out there in content.And as someone who already has a MA in english and has taught on university faculty, I can honestly say that this book mentions a lot of obscure writers while ignoring the more important ones (and the ones that appear on the test most).In addition, this book doesn't really cover the new emphasis on literary theory and postcolonial writers.All this being said, there is a real shortage in Test Prep materials for this exam and I would recommend anyone who is seriously studying to buy this book anyway for the 25% good questions. You'll need all the help you can get! ... Read more

Book Description
This Companion provides a full introduction to the poetry of William Shakespeare through discussion of his freestanding narrative poems, the Sonnets, and his plays. Fourteen leading international scholars provide accessible and authoritative chapters on all relevant topics: from Shakespeare's seminal role in the development of English poetry, the wide-ranging practice of his poetic form, and his enigmatic place in print and manuscript culture, to his immersion in English Renaissance politics, religion, classicism, and gender dynamics. With individual chapters on Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, 'The Phoenix and the Turtle', the Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint, the Companion also includes chapters on the presence of poetry in the dramatic works, on the relation between poetry and performance, and on the reception and influence of the poems. The volume includes a chronology of Shakespeare's life, a note on reference works, and a reading list for each chapter. ... Read more

Book Description
This study of the Victorian fascination with fairies reveals their significance in Victorian art and literature. Nicola Bown explores what the fairy meant to the Victorians, and why they were so captivated by a figure which nowadays seems trivial and childish. She argues that fairies were a fantasy that allowed the Victorians to escape from their worries about science, technology and the effects of progress. The fairyland they dreamed about was a reconfiguration of their own world, and the fairies who inhabited it were like themselves. ... Read more

Book Description
The classic survey of English literature in a vibrant new edition, with Stephen Greenblatt as general editor.

A legendary bestseller for more than forty years, The Norton Anthology of English Literature is the classic survey to the field from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. With more than ninety authors, the Major Authors Edition deepens its representation of essential works in all genres, ranging from Seamus Heaney's award-winning translation of Beowulf and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to the greats of the nineteenth century—Blake and Wordsworth, Tennyson and Barrett Browning—to twentieth-century classics of a truly global English literature—Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, poetry by Derek Walcott, and prose by Nadine Gordimer and Salman Rushdie, to name but a few. Color plates—over seventy-five in all—bring to life the cultural concerns of each period. Concise glosses and annotations, period introductions, biographical headnotes, timelines, and selected bibliographies help readers understand and enjoy the rich diversity of English literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Wonderful Anthology
I used this anthology for my Intro to Brit lit class. A great option as it begins with "Dream of the Rood" which is pre-Norman Conquest and continues to more modern times.

Great book for serious readers.
Don't pick this book up if you want a Sunday read or something.This anthology is for serious minded academic folk who want to school themselves in writing from England.I can't imagine why you would get it if you were not a student.

In any case, it gives you many works, and all are preceded by very well written introductions, including information on the author's life.

I am considering keeping it even though my course is over.

Everything in the palm of your hand. Or, hands...
This edition of the Norton Anthology should be required for any literate person to own and at least leaf through, if not completely consume. It's a terrific collection of the bests of English literature, with very insightful footnotes on each piece. A good purchase, and was a good choice for my professor, who assigned it as the text for an Eng. Lit course. The only problem was the size - this tome is a monster! Definitely not something to carry to the beach, or even on a plane.

It's a keeper!
The 8th edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature is edited by Greenblatt and contains "the major authors" only. This thorough overview of the genre ranges from 15 c. Anglo Saxon literature (including Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf") to some contemporary British literature (including work by JM Coetzee and Salman Rushdie). The selections are good ones and do not seem to suffer from a single editorial point of view or tone (unlike the Penguin survey edition of modern literature that is, frankly, a complete downer). This Norton edition includes classics such as John Donne's "Meditation 17",Swift's "A Modest Proposal", Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", an excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication on the Rights of Women", "Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" and so on (it might be a bit thin on the ladies but what is included is the good stuff). As an English teacher and probable reference freak, I am pleased with it. ... Read more

Book Description
A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction offers an authoritative overview of contemporary British fiction in its social, political, and economic contexts.

• Focuses on the fiction that has emerged since the late 1970s, roughly since the start of the Thatcher era.


• Comprises original essays from major scholars.


• Topics range from the rise and fall of the postcolonial novel to controversies over the celebrity author.


• The emphasis is on the whole fiction scene, from bookstores and prizes to the changing economics of film adaptation.


• Enables students to read contemporary works of British fiction with a much clearer sense of where they fit within British cultural life.