"The best (and the best written) book about Austen that has appeared in the last three decades."—Nina Auerbach, Journal of English and Germanic Philology"By looking at the ways in which Austen domesticates the gothic in Northanger Abbey, examines the conventions of male inheritance and its negative impact on attempts to define the family as a site of care and generosity in Sense and Sensibility, makes claims for the desirability of 'personal happiness as a liberating moral category' in Pride and Prejudice, validates the rights of female authority in Emma, and stresses the benefits of female independence in Persuasion, Johnson offers an original and persuasive reassessment of Jane Austen's thought."—Kate Fullbrook, Times Higher Education Supplement

    Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

     However, it seems the great detective cannot resist the lure of the game for very long. When the Crippen murder case, in which Harvey Crippen is believed to have murdered his wife, Belle Elmore, comes to a brutal end with the hanging of Crippen, Holmes returns to London. He believes there is more to the story than the papers and the jury found and is determined to get to the bottom of the matter. The plot thickens as the duo, joined by the also retired Detective Inspector Lestrade, join forces to uncover what really happened in house 39 Hilldrop Crescent. As Watson uncovers more and more clues that corroborate Holmes’ belief that Crippen was innocent, Holmes takes it upon himself to investigate the happenings of the local homeless community, where people have been disappearing for months. Though seemingly unrelated, the two intertwine in a shocking turn of events. From ghosts and cannibals to faked deaths and homeless alcoholics, Sherlock Holmes and the Hilldrop Crescent Mystery carries on the pounding crescendo until the very end. ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Hilldrop Crescent Mystery’ is a gripping thriller by Val Andrews. Val Andrews (15 February 1926 – 12 December 2006) was a music hall artist, ventriloquist and writer. Andrews was a prolific writer on magic, having published over 1000 books and booklets from 1952. He also authored Sherlock Holmes pastiches and Houdini's novels.

    They pored over magazines that described the dangerous pleasures of corporal punishment. A few had sexual relationships with each other, exchanged rings and vows, willed each other property, and lived together in long-term partnerships described as marriages. But, as Sharon Marcus shows, these women were not seen as gender outlaws. Their desires were fanned by consumer culture, and their friendships and unions were accepted and even encouraged by family, society, and church. Far from being sexless angels defined only by male desires, Victorian women openly enjoyed looking at and even dominating other women. Their friendships helped realize the ideal of companionate love between men and women celebrated by novels, and their unions influenced politicians and social thinkers to reform marriage law.Through a close examination of literature, memoirs, letters, domestic magazines, and political debates, Marcus reveals how relationships between women were a crucial component of femininity. Deeply researched, powerfully argued, and filled with original readings of familiar and surprising sources, Between Women overturns everything we thought we knew about Victorian women and the history of marriage and family life. It offers a new paradigm for theorizing gender and sexuality--not just in the Victorian period, but in our own.

    Gives readers an accessible overview of the many interlocking strands of the movement, focusing on the leading figures in Britain, Germany, France, America, Italy and Russia.

    Heroes are not only brave, but they’re also able to navigate the convoluted corridors of society, and to see through the respectable pretense of others to detect the evil that lies within. So, who better to take on the foggy, crime-ridden streets and strict social mores of Victorian London than the iconic literary detective Sherlock Holmes?In Sherlock Holmes: Beyond the Elementary, you’ll investigate the history behind Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s whip-smart, charismatic detective. James Krasner, a scholar of British Victorian literature, will play the role of “Watson”, as he offers a clearer picture of the imaginative influence Sherlock Holmes has maintained over readers, from the 19th century through today. While you examine the secrets of novels like A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles and stories like “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Final Problem”, you’ll deepen your appreciation of these enduring works. You’ll also gain insights into Holmes’ continued relevance to the social problems we face in our own world.What does the relationship between Holmes and Watson tell us about friendship? Is Sherlock Holmes just a “thinking machine”? How do these adventures lay bare gender dynamics in surprising ways? The answers are far from elementary.

    A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series will all follow the same structure:a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences, and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas; a summary of how the novel was received upon publication; a summary of how the novel has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations, literary prizes, etc.; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites and discussion forums; and a list of questions for reading groups to discuss.

    Bad television--predictable, commercial, exploitative--simply yields to the forces. Good television, like the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fights them. Fighting the Forces explores the struggle to create meaning in an impressive example of popular culture, the television series phenomenon Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the essays collected here, contributors examine the series using a variety of techniques and viewpoints. They analyze the social and cultural issues implicit in the series and place it in its literary context, not only by examining its literary influences (from German liebestod to Huckleberry Finn) but also by exploring the series' purposeful literary allusions. Furthermore, the book explores the extratextual, such as fanfiction and online discussion groups. The book is additionally supplemented by an online journal Slayage (www.slayage.tv), created by the book editors in acknowledgement of the ongoing nature of television art. Rhonda V. Wilcox and David Lavery have written and edited several books and articles exploring the social, literary, and artistic merit of quality television. In addition to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, their work has covered a variety of programs including Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, The X-Files, and The Sopranos.

    Drawing on texts that range from 18th-century female conduct books and contract theory to modern psychoanalytic case histories and theories of reading, Armstrong shows that the emergence of a particular form of female subjectivity capable of reigning over the household paved the way for the establishment of institutions which today are accepted centers of political power. Neither passive subjects nor embattled rebels, the middle-class women who were authors and subjects of the major tradition of British fiction were among the forgers of a new form of power that worked in, and through, their writing to replace prevailing notions of identity with a gender-determined subjectivity. Examining the works of such novelists as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Bront�s, she reveals the ways in which these authors rewrite the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore to be desired.

    350 full-color photos, paintings & illustrations.

    For most of the 19th century, a wide variety of expressive forms--Shakespearean drama, opera, orchestral music, painting & sculpture, as well as the writings of such authors as Dickens & Longfellow--enjoyed both high cultural status & mass popularity. In the 19th century Americans (in addition to whatever specific ethnic, class & regional cultures they were part of) shared a public culture less hierarchically organized, less fragmented into relatively rigid adjectival groupings than their descendants were to experience. By the 20th century this cultural eclecticism & openness became increasingly rare. Cultural space was more sharply defined, less flexible than it had been. The theater, once a microcosm of America--housing both the entire spectrum of the population & the complete range of entertainment from tragedy to farce, juggling to ballet, opera to minstrelsy--now fragmented into discrete spaces catering to distinct audiences & separate genres of expressive culture. The same transition occurred in concert halls, opera houses & museums. A growing chasm between 'serious' & 'popular', 'high' & 'low' culture came to dominate the expressive arts."If there is a tragedy in this development," Levine notes, "it is not only that millions of Americans were now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven & Verdi, whom they had enjoyed in various formats for much of the 19th century, but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value & importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. "Too many of those who considered themselves educated & cultured lost for a significant period--& many have still not regained--their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves & understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible & highly popular it was not therefore necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit."Note: first presented as The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization in 1986,

    A renowned stylist of hyper-brevity in fiction, Fleur Jaeggy proves herself an even more concise master of the essay form, albeit in a most peculiar and lapidary poetic vein. Of De Quincey’s early nineteenth-century world we hear of the habits of writers: Charles Lamb “spoke of ‘Lilliputian rabbits’ when eating frog fricassse”; Henry Fuseli “ate a diet of raw meat in order to obtain splendid dreams”; “Hazlitt was perceptive about musculature and boxers”; and “Wordsworth used a buttery knife to cut the pages of a first-edition Burke.” In a book of “blue devils” and night visions, the Keats essay opens: “In 1803, the guillotine was a common child’s toy.” And poor Schwob’s end comes as he feels “like a ‘dog cut open alive’”: “His face colored slightly, turning into a mask of gold. His eyes stayed open imperiously. No one could shut his eyelids. The room smoked of grief.” Fleur Jaeggy’s essays—or are they prose poems?—smoke of necessity: the pages are on fire.

    No recent study has examined the meaning of Wagner's masterpiece with the attention to detail and intellectual power that Roger Scruton brings to it in this inspiring account. The Ring of Truth is an exploration of the drama, music, symbolism and philosophy of the Ring from a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher.Scruton shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Wagner is able to express truths about the human condition which few other creative artists have been able to convey so convincingly. For Wagner, writes Scruton, the task of art is to 'show us freedom in its immediate, contingent, human form, reminding us of what it means to us. Even if we live in a world from which gods and heroes have disappeared we can, by imagining them, dramatize the deep truths of our condition and renew our faith in what we are.'Love, death, sacrifice and the liberation that we win through sacrifice - these are the great themes of the Ring, as they are of this book. Scruton's passionate and moving interpretation allows us to understand more fully than ever how Wagner conveys his ideas about who we are, and why the Ring continues to be such a hypnotically absorbing work.

    This book offers a very generous selection from authors who have traditionally held a large place in our consciousness of English Romanticism, but it also includes other figures, especially women, who have been less emphasized in the past. The intellectual discourses of the age concerning governance, politics, and the impact of the French Revolution, gender and the status of women, the nature of nature and of human psychology, and the theory of literature and art are represented in the prose and poetry of writers like Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Shelleys, and Keats. There is also an usually large selection of ancillary materials -- letters, journals, reviews, and reminiscences of the writers.

    As the Civil War raged, an unlikely friendship was born between the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a literary figure who ran guns to Kansas and commanded the first Union regiment of black soldiers. When Dickinson sent Higginson four of her poems, he realized he had encountered a wholly original genius; their intense correspondence continued for the next quarter century.In White Heat, Brenda Wineapple tells an extraordinary story about poetry, politics, and love -- one that sheds new light on her subjects, and on the roiling America they shared.