Unique comedy title for Christmas by national treasure and doyenne of Radio 4, Sandi Toksvig.

This work is a definitive study of R.K. Narayan, author of fifteen novels and novellas and more than half a dozen collections of short stories. Based on his personal experiences with Narayan and his friends and relatives, Rao does detailed critical analyses of all of Narayan's works, reading them through the lens of the Indian philosophical concept of the three 'gunas'.

Marina Warner's study of the products of fantasy deepens our understanding of the supernatural in relation to self and society. This surprising story explores the metaphors and media that have been the stock in trade of poets, scientists, magicians, and visionaries, including wax and cloud, smoke and mirrors, ether, ectoplasm, and celluloid.

This book introduces you clearly and succinctly to the ways in which feminist ideas have transformed the form and content of British women's fiction and non-fiction writing.

Maria Edgeworth was a pioneer of realist children's literature. This critical edition reveals the range of her writing for children, ranging from stories for very young children to tales for young adults, and includes The Purple Jar, The Good Aunt and The Grateful Negro.

A brilliant and insightful celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death.

The works of Mervyn Peake have fascinated readers for several years. His Gormenghast sequence of novels are serialized to great acclaim by the BBC stands. This book traces the recurrent motifs through Peake's works (islands, animals, and loneliness) and explores Peake's play, "The Wit to Woo".

The new edition of the successful first edition will cover all of Rushdie's work up to the present.

Providing a brief account of the life of Sir Walter Scott, this text charts his development as a poet and novelist, and justifies his claims to attention as a major 19th century novelist and a seminal influence on later writers.

He came to public notice after the publication of his award-winning novel, Hawksmoor (1985), a thrilling historiographic metafiction that combines the horror of an 18th-century gothic tale of ritual murder with the suspense of a 20th-century detective story.

Thomas is one of the most controversial writers of our time - considered by some a major voice in contemporary fiction, by others a dubious literary 'impostor' who repeatedly appropriates female sexuality, the holocaust and the work of other writers for personal gain.

There are more detailed analyses of Atwood's most influential writing, from her first novels such as Surfacing and The Edible Woman, through the works that ensured her international reputation such as The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride, to her most recent work, Alias Grace and Oryx and Crake.

She explores the psychological and stylistic aspect of Barnes's work through close analysis of the texts within their social, cultural and aesthetic context, and provides an indispensable and enriching guide to Barnes's artistic identity and poetic vision.

This book explores the development and significance of the writer and painter Wyndham Lewis, the history of Anglo-American modernism in addition to modernism's internal critique.

Helen Thomas examines the ways in which Caryl Phillips responds both creatively and critically to the psychological effects of cultural dispersal, racism and economic exploitation in the black Atlantic.

The notion of thinking as an outside, and the critical distance which this entails, is a key to an understanding of Desai as writer, and a recurrent theme for the discussions of her novels and short stories in her book.

Margaret Drabble is a writer whose subject matter and technique have developed profoundly since the early sixties: this book draws together the different aspects of her narrative practice, and looks at the increasing flexibility of her narrative methods, both in terms of the kind of narrator used and in the structuring of plot events.

Neil Gunn is now generally accepted as the most significant novelist the Highlands of Scotland have produced. This study examines the scope and depth of his work and assesses him as a writer of European stature.

Graham Swift is among the foremost contemporary British writers, having published seven highly acclaimed novels which are widely read by students and general public alike.

Flann O'Brien was the best known pen name of Brian O'Nolan one of modern Ireland's most perplexing, subversive and underrated writers. Re-reading the whole span of Flann O'Brien's work, this title reintroduces O'Brien as a figure more relevant than ever to contemporary debates in Modernism and Irish studies.

Stephen Crane provides a general overview of all of Stephen Crane's major works, and many of his minor ones. The Red Badge of Courage was recognised by many as the finest war novel in English, and Crane subsequently devoted much effort to writing more about the war.

This new edition of Kevin McCarron's study includes a new chapter on Golding's posthumous book The Double Tongue, and so encompasses the whole of Golding's novels.

Rediscover the beloved classic Little Women and its lasting power as it celebrates its 150th anniversary.