A spirited and essential companion to Orwell and his works, covering all the novels and major essays An intellectual who hated intellectuals, a socialist who didn't trust the state – our foremost political essayist and author of "Animal Farm and Ni...

An illumination of writing's mysteries through examining the words and ideas that were edited out of renowned novels, poems, and plays. Imagine looking over your favorite author's shoulder and witnessing the moment they begin writing the opening cha...

Yale French Studies 142 explores the contemporary relevance of an alternative strand of feminism as theorized by Monique Wittig. This volume of Yale French Studies foregrounds Monique Wittig (1935-2003), a writer who left France to live and teach i...

What happened when Jane Austen's heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the centre of Jane Austen's novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to...

A clear-sighted and entertaining defence of literary realism, and an account of its key practitioners. Realist fiction is one of the most enduring artforms history has ever witnessed. By describing the intricate inner life of its characters, or wid...

The Geoffrey Chaucer of this book is not the Father of English Literature that you think you know. In this wide-ranging collection of essays you will find wartime Chaucer, postcolonial Chaucer, feminist Chaucer, misogynist Chaucer, radical Chaucer an...

The untold story of Shakespeare's profound influence on Virginia Woolf and the rest of the Bloomsbury Group. For the men and women of the Bloomsbury Group, Shakespeare was a constant presence and a creative benchmark. Not only the works they intend...

United States Poet Laureate and winner of the 2022 Academy of American Poets Leadership Award Joy Harjo examines the power of words and how poetry summons us toward justice and healing. In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Jo...

The less it is part of everyday life, the more the appeal of handwriting grows. This wonderful selection of treasures from the Bodleian Library introduces remarkable individuals through documents written by their own hands. From the second century BC...

A copiously illustrated global history of magic books, from ancient papyri to pulp paperbacks. Grimoires, textbooks of magic and occult knowledge, have existed through the ages alongside other magic and religious texts in part because of the need t...