Wonderworks reveals that literature is among the mightiest technologies that humans have ever invented, precision-honed to give us what our brains most want and need.

It looks at how artists have responded to two great, contrasting works, Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress; A brief coda turns to a fourth relationship: writers and artists who collaborate from the start, like Dickens and Phiz, and Lewis Carroll and Tenniel.

The Work of Literature presents a fresh approach to the question of the value of literature, posing and responding to questions about the way we read and write about literature, its value to individuals and society, how it is best approached by readers and critics, and how it retains its power to give pleasure over decades and centuries.

The arresting poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins arises from philosophical engagement with the Trinity, the Incarnation, and other mysteries of Christian revelation. With explications of more than 29 of Hopkins' poems and prose works, this study traces the writer's engagement with his age.

How speculative realism impacts the art of literary criticism.

Reexamines the role of Spenser's work in English history and highlights the richness and complexity of his understanding of place. The volume centres on the idea that complex and allusive literary works such as The Faerie Queene must be read in the context of the cultural, literary, political, economic, and ideological forces at play in the highly allegorical poem.

Staring down the barrel of her fortieth year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes and put mascara on in the back of a moving cab and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought.

An artist's intensely personal reckoning that delves deep inside the making of art, and explores the value of facing, and depicting, the darkest of horrors.

In The Writer Abroad, Lucinda Hawksley takes us on a literary journey around the world, through extracts from Arthur Conan Doyle in Australia, Joseph Conrad in the Congo, Charles Dickens in Italy, Henry James in France, Mary Wollstonecraft in Sweden, and many more.

By turns reflective, controversial, entertaining and moving, this book reveals how some of the most influential and best loved writers of our time were shaped by their inspirational teachers.

A celebration of the Virago Modern Classics

The love of place is endemic in English literature, from the work of the earliest poets and hermits to the suburban celebrations of John Betjeman, covering all varieties of the British rural and urban landscape. This book presents an image of Britain as seen by writers of different regions and periods.

Writers, Readers, and Reputations explores the literary world in which the modern best-seller first emerged. Writers were promoted as celebrities, advertising both products and themselves. Philip Waller's detailed and entertaining study is a collective biography of literary figures, some forgotten, some enduring, over half a century.

The perfect gift for graduation! An inspiring, accessible and powerful collection of pieces of writing from William Shakespeare to L.M. Montgomery to Tim Minchin.

Writing a War of Words is the first investigation of a valuable archive of war-time notebooks documenting changes to the English language on the Home Front. Using unconventional sources, it explores the effect of war on the language of ordinary people, and reflects on the role of language as an interdisciplinary lens on history.

What did it mean in the first half of the 20th century to say "I am English"? This collection contains extracts, drawn from a wide range of sources of the time including letters, diaries, journalism, fiction, poems, parliamentary speeches and government reports, which all raise this question.

Explores the elements of fiction, providing practical writing techniques and examples. Written in a tone that is personal and non-prescriptive, this book encourages students to develop proficiency through each step of the writing process. It also integrates diverse, contemporary short stories in every chapter.

An atmospheric narrative account of young writers working together in wartime London by an exciting new voice in literary non-fiction