Books in the New Casebooks series

Perplexing and innovative in technique, Joyce wanted Dubliners to be a 'chapter in the moral history of my country'. This New Casebook brings together a range of different critical interpretations of Dubliners that demonstrate the complexity and fascination of Joyce's 'moral history'.

This collection of modern essays by leading figures in the field of Shakespeare scholarship reveals the rich interplay between contemporary theoretical approaches - psychoanalytic, new historicist, feminist and cultural materialist - and the study of the play in performance, both in Shakespeare's time and our own.

This volume offers a selection of important contemporary criticism on two of Jane Austen's most popular and widely-studied novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. The volume includes recent essays from Alastair Duckworth, Marilyn Butler, D.A. Miller, Isobel Armstrong and Karen Newman.

A long-standing controversy over the 'reality' or otherwise of the ghosts has given way to a general recognition of textual ambiguity, and recent developments in criticism, including Feminist, Materialist and Poststructuralist readings, have now brought out fundamental underlying issues of gender, class and sexuality.

Thomas Hardy has long been critically constructed as 'poet of Wessex' and 'novelist of Character and Environment'. This volume offers to deconstruct such a mythic 'Hardy' in selecting contemporary critical essays which re-present Tess from very different critical perspectives.

Aphra Behn's work has always been subject to critical fashion and her literary reputation was only really secured in the closing decade of this century, especially by new historicist and feminist critics.

The essays are drawn from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, covering language, history, psychoanalysis, feminism and the relation of the novels to modernism, and look forward to new developments in Lawrence scholarship.

This New Casebook provides an overview of the criticism of work by Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, and an introduction to the key works and issues in African-American literary scholarship.

Articles from the last two decades by leading critics of English early modern drama provide a variety of fresh, controversial and enlightening critical perspectives on five of Marlowe's plays: Tamburlaine the Great Parts One and Two, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, and Edward II.

The collection as a whole demonstrates a variety of recent critical approaches to the genre, including feminist, psychoanalytic, new historicist and cultural materialist viewpoints, inspiring students to revisit these plays and to engage directly with the politics of the past and present, and the ways in which they interrelate.

This collection of recent essays on James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, provides an up-to-date overview of debates in Joycean scholarship, with particular emphasis on gender, postcolonial and ideological critiques, and deconstructive readings.

Julius Caesar: A New Casebook provides students and academics with a selection of important essays by leading contemporary critics on Shakespeare's first "Globe" play.

This New Casebook explores the enduring significance of George Eliot's novels The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861).

This collection of essays is aimed at students who are working on The Merchant of Venice and who are looking for new ways of thinking about the play and new ways of thinking about their own practice as critics.

This volume presents a broad range of critical essays exemplifying different approaches to Shakespeare's two comedies, The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado about Nothing.

New Casebook offers a selection of the most lively and innovative contemporary criticism on the four late plays commonly known as Shakespeare's 'Romances': Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

The introduction situates the novel in relation to the history of critical reception, of both Hardy's work in general and the novel in particular. In addition, it addresses the ways in which critical work on Hardy since the 1970s has sought to reassess the novelist, while complicating the reader's understanding and appreciation of Hardy.

Collecting together essays which offer detailed accounts of particular plays, along with others that take a broader overview of the field, this casebook showcases the range of critical strategies used in feminist criticism of Shakespeare.

A wide-ranging selection from the most recent criticism of Antony and Cleopatra, beginning with seminal work from the 1950s onwards, and culminating in a series of radical reappraisals of the play's content, form, and appeal to modern readers.

The Tempest has not only generated many creative adaptations in drama, poetry, novels and films, but it has also proved a testing ground for virtually all the new literary theories available.

This book features a collection of essays on some of the key poets of post-war America, written by leading scholars in the field. All the essays have been newly commissioned to take account of the diverse movements in American poetry since 1945, and also to reflect, retrospectively, on some of the major talents that have shaped its development.In the aftermath of the Second World War, American poets took stock of their own tumultuous past but faced the future with radically new artistic ideals and commitments. More than ever before, American poetry spoke with its own distinctive accents and declared its own dreams and desires. This is the era of confessionalism, beat poetry, protest poetry, and avant-garde postmodernism. This book explores the work of John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, and Sylvia Plath, as well as contemporary African American poets and new poetic voices emerging in the twenty-first century. This New Casebook introduces the major American poets of the post-war generation, evaluates their achievements in the light of changing critical opinion, and offers lively, incisive readings of some of the most challenging and enthralling poetry of the modern era.

This volume brings together a wide range of original, scholarly essays on key figures and topics in medieval literature by leading academics. The volume examines the major authors such as Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain Poet, and covers key topics in medieval literature, including gender, class, courtly and popular culture, and religion. The volume seeks to provide a fresh and stimulating guide to medieval literature.

Over the last twenty years, Jacqueline Wilson has published well over 100 titles and has become firmly established in the landscape of Children's Literature. She has written for all ages, from picture books for young readers to young adult fiction and tackles a wide variety of controversial topics, such as child abuse, mental illness and bereavement. Although she has received some criticism for presenting difficult and seemingly 'adult' topics to children, she remains overwhelmingly popular among her audience and has won numerous prizes selected by children, such as the Smarties Book Prize. This collection of newly commissioned essays explores Wilson's literature from all angles. The essays cover not only the content and themes of Wilson's writing, but also her success as a publishing phenomenon and the branding of her books. Issues of gender roles and child/carer relationships are examined alongside Wilson's writing style and use of techniques such as the unreliable narrator. The book also features an interview with Jacqueline Wilson herself, where she discusses the challenges of writing social realism for young readers and how her writing has changed over her lengthy career.

Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy enthrals children through its storytelling but is also an ambitious and sophisticated work. This collection, consisting of brand new essays by an international team of scholars, provides both an overview and a critical assessment of the trilogy's reputation and its place within modern children's literature.

This vibrant collection of original essays sheds new light on all of Fowles' writings, with a special focus on The French Lieutenant's Woman as the most widely studied of Fowles' works. The impressive cast of contributors offers an outstanding range of expertise on Fowles, providing fresh reassessments and new perspectives.

This collection of original essays by an international team of Hughes scholars demonstrates afresh how key contextual and theoretical approaches to the poet's work serve to illuminate the texts. Part I reads Hughes' poems through cultural contexts while Part II examines his work through the frames of a range of literary theories.

Roald Dahl is one of the world's best-loved authors. More than twenty years after his death, his books are still highly popular with children and have inspired numerous feature films - yet he remains a controversial figure.This volume, the first collection of academic essays ever to be devoted to Dahl's work, brings together a team of well-known scholars of children's literature to explore the man, his books for children, and his complex attitudes towards various key subjects. Including essays on education, crime, Dahl's humour, his long-term collaboration with the artist Quentin Blake, and film adaptations, this fascinating collection offers a unique insight into the writer and his world.

C. S. Lewis's seven-book series about the fictional land of Narnia has become an irrefutable classic. This collection of original, wide-ranging essays explores the past, present and future importance of The Chronicles of Narnia, providing the most current, and some of the most cutting-edge, research about this popular fantasy series.

This vibrant and timely collection of brand new essays explores the complete Harry Potter series. The volume presents a variety of critical essays by a range of scholars, providing students with much needed guidance on how to approach these immensely popular texts and films, and how to tackle the complex concepts found within Rowling's world.

This edited collection of brand new essays examines The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the light of children's literature theory and approaches. Exploring issues such as gender, language, narrative, and ecocriticism, the volume also places Tolkien's most popular works in the context of a range of visual media including the film adaptations.