It seeks to provoke uniquely strong reactions, such as fear, shock, dread or disgust, and yet remains very popular. Horror is most readily associated with the film industry, but horrific short stories and novels have been wildly loved by readers for well over two centuries. Despite its persistent popularity, until now there has been no up-to-date history of horror fiction for the general reader. This book offers a chronological overview of the genre in fiction and explores its development and mutations over the past 250 years. It also challenges the common misjudgement that horror fiction is necessarily frivolous or dispensable. Leading experts on Gothic and horror literature introduce readers to classics of the genre as well as exciting texts they may not have encountered before. The topics examined include: horror’s roots in the Gothic romance and antebellum American fiction; the penny dreadful and sensation novels of Victorian England; fin-de-siècle ghost stories; decadent fiction and the weird; the familial horrors of the Cold War era; the publishing boom of the 1980s; the establishment of contemporary horror auteurs; and the post-millennial zombie trend.

    He relates the arts to society instead of penning them in the study. As a judge, he is tolerant and undogmatic, but never slack in his standards. He is fair to all and gushes over none...This justice of approach is coupled with a mastery of phrase, which makes the writing lively without being exhibitionistic. Since its first appearance in 1940, A Short History of English Literature has served countless readers as a perceptive, reliable, and readable guide. This fourth edition < revised and extended to include major poets, dramatists, and novelists of the present day < provides an invaluable map to the vast field of English literature.

    Here are traditional tales about the trees and plants that shape our landscapes and our lives through the seasons. They explore the complex relationship between people and plants, in lowlands and uplands, fields, bogs, moors, woodlands and towns.Suitable for all ages, this is an essential collection of stories for anyone interested in botany, the environment and our living heritage.

    Drawing on a wide range of  great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works.

    He later said that he had learned more in those two years than in any other equal part of his life. The Ring of Words reveals how his professional work on the Oxford English Dictionary influenced Tolkien's creative use of language in his fictional world. Here three senior editors of the OED offer an intriguing exploration of Tolkien's career as a lexicographer and illuminate his creativity as a word user and word creator. The centerpiece of the book is a wonderful collection of word studies which will delight the heart of Ring fans and word lovers everywhere. The editors look at the origin of such Tolkienesque words as hobbit, mithril, Smeagol, Ent, halfling, and worm (meaning dragon). Readers discover that a word such as mathom (anything a hobbit had no immediate use for, but was unwilling to throw away) was actually common in Old English, but that Mithril, on the other hand, is a complete invention (and the first Elven word to have an entry in the OED). And fans of Harry Potter will be surprised to find that Dumbledore (the name of Hogwart's headmaster) was a word used by Tolkien and many others (it is a dialect word meaning bumblebee). Few novelists have found so much of their creative inspiration in the shapes and histories of words. Presenting archival material not found anywhere else, The Ring of Words offers a fresh and unexplored angle on the literary achievements of one of the world's most famous and best-loved writers.

    He enjoins educators to stop offering up literature as facile entertainment and instead teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read. Praise for Why Read?: "Edmundson is dead on target."-Washington Post Book World "Edmundson's an engaging teacher, earnest, knowledgeable, witty."-Boston Globe "Why Read? makes passionate arguments for literature's soul-making potential."-Raleigh News and Observer "An engaging blend of social criticism, self-improvement wisdom, and appeal to fellow humanities professors...Edmundson writes with a rare combination of force and humility."-Willamette Weekly Mark Edmundson is NEH/Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. A prizewinning scholar, he is the author of Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida, and the widely praised memoir, Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference. He has written for the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and Harper's, where he is a contributing editor. Featured on Brian Lamb's final Booknotes Also available: HC 1-58234-425-6 ISBN 13: 978-158234-425- $21.95

    Andersen's most beloved tales, such as "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid" are now joined by "The Shadow" and "Story of a Mother," mature stories that reveal his literary range and depth. Tatar captures the tales' unrivaled dramatic and visual power, showing exactly how Andersen became one of the world's ten most translated authors, along with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Marx. Lushly illustrated with more than one hundred fifty rare images, many in full color, by artists such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen will captivate readers with annotations that explore the rich social and cultural dimensions of the nineteenth century and construct a compelling portrait of a writer whose stories still fascinate us today.

    The era was one of unprecedented authoritarianism: England, it seemed, had become a police state, fearful of threats from abroad and plotters at home. This age of terror was also the era of the greatest creative genius the world has ever known: William Shakespeare. How, then, could such a remarkable man born into such violently volatile times apparently make no comment about the state of England in his work? He did. But it was hidden. Revealing Shakespeare's sophisticated version of a forgotten code developed by 16th-century dissidents, Clare Asquith shows how he was both a genius for all time and utterly a creature of his own era: a writer who was supported by dissident Catholic aristocrats, who agonized about the fate of England's spiritual and political life and who used the stage to attack and expose a regime which he believed had seized illegal control of the country he loved.Shakespeare's plays offer an acute insight into the politics and personalities of his era. And Clare Asquith's decoding of them offers answers to several mysteries surrounding Shakespeare's own life, including most notably why he stopped writing while still at the height of his powers. An utterly compelling combination of literary detection and political revelation, Shadowplay is the definitive expose of how Shakespeare lived through and understood the agonies of his time, and what he had to say about them.

    Illuminations includes Benjamin's views on Kafka, with whom he felt the closest personal affinity, his studies on Baudelaire and Proust (both of whom he translated), his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study on "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an illuminating discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his thesis on the philosophy of history. Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and prefaces them with a substantial, admirably informed introduction that presents Benjamin's personality and intellectual development, as well as his work and his life in dark times. Reflections the companion volume to this book, is also available as a Schocken paperback.Unpacking My Library, 1931The Task of the Translator, 1913The Storyteller, 1936Franz Kafka, 1934Some Reflections on Kafka, 1938What Is Epic Theater?, 1939On Some Motifs in Baudelaire, 1939The Image of Proust, 1929The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936Theses on the Philosophy of History, written 1940, pub. 1950

    However, since all of the letters referenced in the film did exist, we decided to publish this gorgeous keepsake ourselves.Love Letters of Great Men follows hot on the heels of the film and collects together some of history's most romantic letters from the private papers of Beethoven, Mark Twain, Mozart, and Lord Byron. For some of these great men, love is a delicious poison (William Congreve); for others, a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music (Charles Darwin). Love can scorch like the heat of the sun (Henry VIII), or penetrate the depths of one's heart like a cooling rain (Flaubert). Every shade of love is here, from the exquisite eloquence of Oscar Wilde and the simple devotion of Robert Browning, to the wonderfully modern misery of the Roman Pliny the Younger, losing himself in work to forget how much he misses his beloved wife, Calpurnia.Taken together, these letters show that perhaps men haven't changed all that much over the last 2,000 years--passion, jealousy, hope and longing still rule their hearts and minds. In an age of e-mail and texted i luv us, this timeless and unique collection reminds us that nothing can compare to the simple joy of sitting down to read a letter from the one you love.

    From The Wire: "Matthew Ingram, aka Woebot, has published a book titled 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s. The book takes in strands of metal, glam rock, French artists, punk and pub rock, and is released digitally as a self-published eBook via Amazon. Ingram says: 'Last year I started writing an article on the 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s but it ballooned out of all proportions and I decided to turn it into an eBook.''Over time we have lost touch with the original character of the 70s. Using 'lost' records I've attempted to re-examinine the decade and redress what I see as imbalance. Beyond small reviews of a meticulously-selected 100 albums there's quite a lot of contemporary history, much theorising and lots of gags.'"

    And yet still, from outrageous robberies to haunting serial killings, there remain those cases that refuse to be cracked.'Unsolved Crimes' collects together the most notorious and mind-boggling felonies ever committed.

    Start Here solves that problem; it tells you how to read your way into 25 amazing authors from a wide range of genres--from classics to contemporary fiction to comics.Each chapter presents an author, explains why you might want to try them, and lays out a 3- or 4-book reading sequence designed to help you experience fully what they have to offer. It’s a fun, accessible, and informative way to enrich your reading life.A wide array of writers, critics, and bloggers offer their expertise and passion for these authors to help you get started reading authors you’ve always wanted to try.Includes chapters by Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus) on Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box) on Bernard Malamud, Linda Fairstein (The Alexandra Cooper Series) on Edgar Allan Poe, and Kevin Smokler (Practical Classics) on Sherman Alexie.Also includes chapters on reading your way into:Margaret AtwoodJane AustenRay BradburyItalo CalvinoPhilip K DickCharles DickensE.M. ForsterGabriel Garcia MarquezErnest HemingwayZora Neale HurstonJohn IrvingStephen KingCormac McCarthyHerman MelvilleArthur MillerAlice MunroHaruki MurakamiRichard RussoZadie SmithDavid Foster WallaceColson Whitehead

    In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

    Maurice Beebe calls it "a distinguished contribution to modern literary history." Jane Marcus hails it as "the first serious literary history of the period and its women writers, making along the way no small contribution to our understanding of the relationships between women artists and their male counterparts, from Henry James to Hemingway, Joyce, Picasso, and Pound."