Books in the Routledge Guides to Literature series

Explores the contextual and critical material that surrounds W H Auden's work, including suggestions for further reading.

Provides an introduction to the text and contexts of "Nights at the Circus", a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication; a selection of critical essays; cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism; and, suggestions for further reading.

This guide to Hopkins' poetry presents extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and interpretations of his work from composition to the present. Including twenty-nine unabridged texts of his most important poems, this sourcebook is invaluable reading for all those beginning a detailed study of Hopkins' work.

Presents the study of nineteenth-century American literature. This title examines the contexts of and critical responses to the author's work.

This volume offers the broadest range of information on Jonson and his works, from background on contexts to details of recent interpretations of his plays.

This wide-ranging introduction to Hardy's novel provides chronology, contextual overview with reprinted contextual documents, critical overview from publication to the present, annotated key passages and suggestions for further reading.

This series has a broad focus but one very clear aim: to equip you with all the knowledge you need to make your own new readings of crucial literary texts.

The popular work of Joseph Conrad has attracted critical attention from the perspectives of postcolonial, modernist, cultural and gender studies. This guide to his work presents an introduction to the contexts and interpretations of Conrad's texts. It also presents an introduction to key perspectives on Conrad's life and work.

Damned upon publication for engaging with the taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity, Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" (1899) is hailed as a key early feminist text and an important work of American literature. This book combines commentary with reprinted documents to provide an introduction to this widely debated novel.

EM Forster's most challenging work, "A Passage to India" has since 1924 provoked debate on topics from imperialism to modernism to ethnicity, sexuality and symbolism. This book introduces not only the novel but the key issues which surround it. It offers a contextual and biographical overview, with a chronology of important dates.

Richard Bradford provides an overview of Milton's life, contexts, work and the relationship between these, and of the main critical issues surrounding his work.

This comprehensive, user-friendly introduction provides information on Chaucer's life, contexts and works, also outlining major critical views and interpretations from initial publication to the present.

This book is the first volume to bring together accessible accounts not only of Beckett's life and work, but of the key literary and theoretical concepts used in the study of his writing.

Thomas Hardy was the foremost novelist of his time, as well as an established poet. This guide provides students with a lucid introduction to Hardy's life and works and the basis for a sound comprehension of his work.

In this Complete Critical Guide to her life and work, Irvine offers insightful analysis of all of Austen's novels. This essential guidebook will be invaluable to students of English Literature, Romanticism, Literary Criticism and The Novel.

Sets "Pride and Prejudice" within the social contexts of female conduct books and political tales of terror, and traces criticism of the novel from the nineteenth century onwards. This title includes fourteen passages from "Pride and Prejudice".