Showing titles in Literary History & Criticism

Romeo and Juliet has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

With in-depth and accessible insight, How Sondheim Can Change Your Life makes the case that the greatness of Sondheim’s brilliance—beyond the clever lyrics and adventurous music—rests in his ability to tell universal stories that relate to us all. From Louise’s desire for freedom as Gypsy Rose Lee to Sweeney Todd’s thirst for revenge, and beyond, we as an audience can easily relate to Sondheim’s characters. His works understand us as much as we understand them.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, authors J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis—who both fought in the trenches of WWI—saw the world descending once again into a human catastrophe. This book tells the story of how the crucible of war brought them together in friendship and inspired them to engage their Christian imagination to confront the darkest forces of their age.

7406 Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion, cool and reserved behind her oversized sunglasses and storied marriage, a union as tortured as it was enduring. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the breaking and then the remaking—and thus the true making—of another great American writer: Eve Babitz, goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky, nude of Marcel Duchamp, consort of Jim Morrison (among many, many others), who burned so hot she finally almost burned herself alive.

Dame Harriet Walter, renowned for her wonderful portrayals in Succession and Killing Eve, among others, is one of Britain's most esteemed Shakespearean actors. Now, having played most of Shakespeare's female characters, audaciously, she lets them speak their minds. With new parts for thirty Shakespearean women, written in 'Shakespearean' verse and prose, Harriet Walter goes between the lines of the plays to let us hear what she imagines - sometimes playfully and sometimes searchingly - these women were really thinking.

The glamorous extravagances and devastating lows of her time in Hollywood are revealed as never before in this fresh new biography of Dorothy Parker—from leaving New York City to work on numerous classic screenplays such as the 1937 A Star Is Born to the devastation of alcoholism, a miscarriage, and her husband’s suicide. Parker’s involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, which led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early work in the civil rights movement that inspired her to leave her entire estate to the NAACP are also explored as never before.

In American Scary, noted cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes the listener to the startling origins of the horror genre in the United States, drawing a surprising through-line between the lingering influence of the European Gothic, the enslaved insurrection tales propagated by slaveholders, and the apocryphal chronicles of colonial settlers kidnapped by Native Americans, among many others.

The Language of the Night is Ursula K. Le Guin’s first full-length collection of essays and criticism, with sections on her own background, on fantasy and science fiction, on writing, and on the future of literate science fiction. Each section is introduced with commentary by Susan Wood and the book contains a complete bibliography of Le Guin’s work (at the time of publication).

「奇妙な仕事」以降、常に文学界の先頭を走り続けてきた大江健三郎。「飼育」で芥川賞、『万延元年のフットボール』で谷崎潤一郎賞、『「雨の木（レイン・ツリー）」を聴く女たち』で読売文学賞

This is a historical journey like no other - unlike every other book on the subject, Goddess with a Thousand Faces transcends geographical boundaries and breaks down cultural barriers. From Rangda in Bali, to Freyja in Iceland and more recognisable faces such as the Greek goddess Artemis, it is a work of true inclusion - listeners are invited to consider these dazzling goddesses as part of a cultural cannon of human femininity; regardless of race, sex, or gender. Goddess with a Thousand Faces asks us to interrogate our past through a fresh new lens.

Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain's most recognisable and well-loved actors. He has played many roles on stage, film, television and radio - ranging from Winston Churchill to Stalin, George Smiley to King Arthur. But ever since his appearance at school as a glamorous Desdemona, complete with false eyelashes that rendered him half-blind, he has been captivated by Shakespeare.

It's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity; its singular ease; the way it can wax and wane; its ability to cause uncommon pain. This is the territory of novels and letters, poems and graphic novels - which is where The Virago Book of Friendship steps in. Celebratory, but also explanatory and wide in scope - from the Bible to Yellowface, from school friends to the loss of friends in old age - this wonderful book includes Jane Austen, Nora Ephron, Toni Morrison, Vivian Gornick, Helen Garner, LM Montgomery, Dolly Alderton - among nearly one hundred others.

In Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness, ‘Agathologist’ Dr Mark Aldridge looks at nearly a century of St Mary Mead’s most famous resident and uses his own detective skills to uncover new information about Miss Jane Marple’s appearances on page, stage, screen and beyond. Drawing on a range of material, some of which is newly discovered and previously unpublished, this book explores everything about Miss Marple, from her origins in a series of short stories penned by Christie, to the recent bestselling HarperCollins collection Marple: Twelve New Stories.

In her first full-length non-fiction since the influential A Map to the Door of No Return, Dionne Brand explores 17th, 18th, and 19th-century English and American literature—and the colonial aesthetic that shaped her sense of self and world, of what was possible and what was not.

Everyone knows Judy Blume. Her books have garnered her fans of all ages for decades and sold tens of millions of copies. But why were people so drawn to them? And why are we still talking about them now in the 21st century? In The Genius of Judy, her remarkable story is revealed as never before, beginning with her as a mother of two searching for purpose outside of her home in 1960s suburban New Jersey.

Joan Didion es una de las cronistas fundamentales de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. En una edición a cargo de Claudio López de Lamadrid, Los que sueñan el sueño dorado reúne por primera vez en castellano una selección de artículos y ensayos de sus libros.

①連ドラ脚本家の70％以上、コンクール受賞者の90％以上が学んだ創作術。②設定のつくり方から、登場人物、構成の立て方、シーンの描き方まで解説。

Straight Acting is a surprising portrait of Shakespeare's queer lives - his own and those in his plays and poems. It is a journey back in time and through Shakespeare's England, revealing a culture that both endorsed and supressed same-sex desire. It is a call to stop making Shakespeare act straight and to recognise how queerness powerfully shaped the life and career of the world's most famous playwright.

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion.

Hätte Shakespeare eine Schwester gehabt, ebenso begabt wie er, wie wäre es ihr ergangen? Welche Widerstände mussten Jane Austen oder die Brontë-Schwestern überwinden? Im Oktober 1928 hielt Virginia Woolf zwei Vorträge am ersten Frauencollege Großbritanniens an der Universität Cambridge. Ob ihnen bewusst sei, fragte Woolf ihre Zuhörerinnen, dass sie vielleicht "das am häufigsten abgehandelte Tier des Universums" seien? Schließlich wurde Literatur über Frauen fast ausschließlich von Männern verfasst. Aus Woolfs Vorträgen entstand der Essay Ein Zimmer für sich allein, den sie ein Jahr später veröffentlichte.