Stories pervade our daily lives, from human interest news items, to a business strategy, to daydreams between chores. Stories are what we use to make sense of the world. But how does this work? This text examines this pervasive human habit and suggests ways to think about how we use stories.

Offers a comprehensive account of the evolutionary origins of art and storytelling. This title explains why we tell stories, how our minds are shaped to understand them, and what difference an evolutionary understanding of human nature makes to stories we love.

This Companion offers a comprehensive account of the influence of contemporary British Black and Asian writing in British culture.

If every writer necessarily draws on their own life, is any writing outside the realm of 'autobiography'? This guide includes developments in autobiographical criticism, highlighting major theoretical issues and concepts different forms of the genre. It offers an introduction to the study of a fascinating genre.

A revelatory biography of the American master as told through the lens of his greatest novel.

Includes a history of science fiction, and the ways in, which the genre has been used and defined. This book provides explanations of key concepts in science fiction criticism and theory. It introduces the reader to nineteenth-century, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Feminist, and Cyberpunk science fictions.

The Novel: A Survival Skill radically reevaluates traditional literary criticism offering an exciting account of what is really at stake in the business of writing and reading.

A wide-ranging and accessible account of the pioneering professional women writers who flourished during the Romantic period.

Nick Selby offers a view of the critical debate about Melville's "Moby Dick". The text begins with Melville's own letters and essays and the early reviews, followed by later studies of Melville from the 1920s, 40s & 50s and 1980s.

A lively introductory guide to English literature from Beowulf to the present day. The authors write in their characteristically lucid style and present the texts in relation to their social, political and cultural contexts. Clear and concise, the updated second edition now features a new final chapter on twenty-first century literature.

The book also features an interview with Jacqueline Wilson herself, where she discusses the challenges of writing social realism for young readers and how her writing has changed over her lengthy career.

Whether you are a student or an experienced author, this book will teach you how to write short stories - and reflect on the creative processes involved.

The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism and Religion provides the first survey of the connections between literature, religion, and intellectual life during the British Romantic period (1780s-1832). The collection of seventeen scholarly essays introduces the diverse religious influences on the literature of the times.

Explores the practices and processes by which manuscripts were crafted, mended, protected, marked, gifted and shared.

Counsel and Command in Early Modern English Thought establishes the precise role political counsel played during the 'monarchy of counsel', from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the end of the English Civil War, and its relation to the discourse of sovereignty, through analysis of the relevant texts in their social and political contexts.

The secret of the process by which consciousness invests history with meaning resides in "the content of the form,in the way our narrative capacities transform the present into a fulfillment of a past from which we would wish to have descended.

Told through the lense of Henry James's relationship with two women who particularly shaped his writing, Henry James is a unforgettable read by one of our best-loved biographers.

This volume is a unique overview of two centuries of short stories from Britain and other English-speaking countries.

An overview of British poetry from 1830 to 1901, with a glossary of literary terms and guide to further reading.

A practical guide providing literature students with the reading and writing skills needed to make the most of their degree.