When beautiful Lucy Graham becomes Lady Audley, her future looks secure. But her past is shrouded in mystery, and the disappearance of a young man sparks an investigation that will reveal her dark secret... This new edition explores the novel in the context of nineteenth-century sensation fiction and the lively debates it provoked.

What is landscape? How does it differ from "land"? This book explores issues raised by the great range of ideas and images of the natural world in Western art since the Renaissance. Topics include landscape as cultural construct and landscape art as picturesque. Context is considered throughout.

Landscape architecture, which includes the planning of parks and gardens and the design and siting of buildings and roads, plays an important role in shaping the world around us. In this Very Short Introduction, Ian Thompson uses real-life examples from around the world to examine its impact throughout history and in contemporary society.

Landscapes are all around us, but most of us know very little about how they have developed, what goes on in them, and how they react to changing climates, tectonics, and human activities. This Very Short Introduction discusses the key ideas and methods used to study and examine landscapes, and their importance in cultural terms.

The past 15 years have witnessed an increasing interest in the comparative study of language and music as cognitive systems. This book presents an interdisciplinary study of language and music, exploring the following core areas - structural comparisons, evolution, learning and processing, and neuroscience.

Language play should not be thought of as a trivial or peripheral activity, but as central to human thought and culture, to learning, creativity, and intellectual enquiry. This book aims to demonstrate the extent and importance of language play in human life, and draw out the implications for applied linguistics and language teaching.

Examines issues, such as test design, the rating process, validity, measurement, and the social dimension of language testing. This book looks at both traditional and modern forms of language assessment, and the challenges posed by various views.