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In 1843 William Wordsworth dictated invaluable notes on his life's work to his friend Isabella Fenwick. In 1993 Jared Curtis published his invaluable edition of these notes (which are not included in The Prose Works of William Wordsworth). This revised and corrected edition of The Fenwick Notes was published 2008. To receive a free accompanying Ebook please send proof of purchase of the paperback to Humanities-Ebooks. Please note that while colour is used in the preview, as in the ebook, the print in the paperback is black and white.

This 304 page bicentennial critical edition of William Wordsworth's impassioned pamphlet on The Convention of Cintra is based on W J B Owen's scholarly edition, and includes all of Professor Owen's commentary and notes. Wordsworth's essay is not merely one of the classic works about the peninsular war but widely cited as one of the first theorisations of guerrilla warfare. It is also a remarkable revelation of Wordsworth's philosophy of human life, and reveals the reanimation of his youthful radicalism by his shock at the British establishment's betrayal of Spanish and Portuguese patriots. The text is prefaced by a critical colloquium with essays by Simon Bainbridge, David Bromwich, Richard Gravil, Timothy Michael and Patrick Vincent.

Jean Toomer's Cane (1923) is regarded by many as a seminal work in the history of African American writing. It is generally called a novel, but it could more accurately be described as a collection of short stories, poems and dramatic pieces whose stylistic indeterminacy is part of its unique appeal. The ambiguities and seeming oddities of Toomer's text make Cane a difficult work to understand, which is why this lucid, accessible guide is so valuable. Exploring some of the difficulties that both the writer and his work embody, Gerry Carlin offers an enthralling account of Toomer's eloquent and exquisite expression of the African American experience. The Author Dr Gerry Carlin is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Wolverhampton. He teaches, researches and has published in the areas of modernism, critical theory, and the literature and culture of the 1960s.

Wordsworth's Bardic Vocation, the most comprehensive critical study of the poet since the 1960s, presents the poet as balladist, sonneteer, minstrel, elegist, prophet of nature, and national bard. The book argues that Wordsworth's uniquely various oeuvre is unified by his sense of bardic vocation. Like Walt Whitman or the bards of Cumbria, Wordsworth sees himself as 'the people's remembrancer'. Like them, he sings of nature and endurance, laments the fallen, fosters national independence and liberty. His task is to reconcile in one society 'the living and the dead' and to nurture both 'the people' and 'the kind'. Review Comment: 'This erudite exposition, profligate with its ideas ... succeeds as few others have done in apprehending Wordsworth's career holistically, incorporating all its diversities and apparent inconsistencies into a unified vision. It justifies fully the notion proposed by Hughes and Heaney that he was England's last national poet.' - Duncan Wu, Review of English Studies

In 1813, when John and Margaret Richardson arrived in Manchester, it was the world's first great industrial city. To contemporaries it was an almost frightening spectacle that attracted visitors from every nation on earth. As the years passed, the Richardsons' descendants became part of Disraeli's "two nations," the super rich and the working class, their lives marked by stoic endeavours, love affairs, grudges, feuds, tragedies and melodramas. Here we meet thrusting entrepreneurs, black sheep, clowns and heroines, hard-won prosperity and sudden misfortune. Author Alan Richardson qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1963 and pursued a career in veterinary research. He has also taken a serious interest in certain aspects of Roman archaeology and has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers on Roman roads, military camps, forts, surveys and field systems. In 1985 he was awarded the Reginald Taylor Prize by the British Archaeological Association for his work on the Roman penetration of East Cheshire.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Richard Brautigan was a counter-cultural celebrity, a writer that the would-be hip just had to read. The problem was that his fame did not rest on the considerable literary virtues of his work but, to a great extent, on a mediated image of cool hippie, which fell out of fashion in the mid-70s. This is the first book-length study of Brautigan in English for 30 years. Its purpose is to reclaim Brautigan's reputation. Dr. John Tanner analyses Brautigan's fiction against the background of the cultural and literary upheavals from which it emerged and demonstrates that Brautigan is no mere Sixties curio but an innovative and vibrant American voice ignored for far too long. John Tanner teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at Bangor University. He is an elected member of the Welsh Academy of writers and his poetry has appeared in various magazines, in the anthology The Lie of the Land, and in the collected volume of his verse, Pieces, both published by Cinnamon Press.

Newly transcribed from manuscript, Francis Jeffrey's Highland Tour of 1800 and Continental Tour of 1823 offer a revealing insight into the sensibility of the arch critic of the Lake Poets. 244 pages, with an introduction by Pamela Perkins.

Giorgio Agamben is one of the most hotly debated political philosophers today. His works on the political and legal paradigm of the West has caught the attention of philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and jurists alike. This book seeks to dispel the most unhelpful myths arising from the politically controversial nature of his work and to defend the most pertinent of his arguments in political philosophy. It also seeks to show how Agamben's philosophy can be useful for analyses of contemporary political and social phenomena. The book discusses centrepieces of Agamben's political philosophy, focusing on Homo Sacer, State of Exception, and The Kingdom and the Glory, and it tackles some of the most pressing issues discussed by Agamben including sovereignty, law, religion, profanation and messianism. Rasmus Ugilt is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Denmark, and author of The Metaphysics of Terror (2012).

Toni Morrison's ground-breaking novel, 'Beloved', is one of the most successful novels of all time, selling millions of copies internationally and inspiring critical commentary from scholars of the highest distinction. Its influence is such that it is studied by students of literature around the world and is often cited as one of the most significant books of modern times. However, its popularity belies its difficulty: many find the novel hard to read, struggling with its structure and occasionally fragmented style. This guide accessible, illuminating guide is designed to help readers engage with this complex work and achieve a deeper understanding of its context, the literary strategies it employs, and the various ways in which it has been interpreted since its publication in 1987. Paul McDonald is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Course Leader for Creative Writing at the University of Wolverhampton, and is the author of eleven books, including three poetry collections and three comic novels.

Drawing upon medical journals, newspapers, propaganda, military histories, and other writings of the day, Modernism, History and the First World War reads such writers as Woolf, HD, Ford, Faulkner, Kipling, and Lawrence alongside fiction and memoirs of soldiers and nurses who served in the war. This ground breaking blend of cultural history and close readings shows how modernism after 1914 emerges as a strange but important form of war writing, and was profoundly engaged with its own troubled history. Trudi Tate s a Fellow and Tutor of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and author of The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory After the Armistice (2013). 'Essential reading for anyone interested in modernist fiction and war writing.'-Jane Potter, Oxford Brookes University. 'This superb book opened up literary studies of the conflict to a range of issues and approaches that have since become crucial to the field'-Santanu Das, King's College London.

Our best-selling poetry introduction offers a detailed commentary on the poetry of Philip Larkin, exploring the political and cultural contexts which have shaped his contemporary reputation. Part 1, Life and Times, traces Larkin's early years and follows his development, within his career as a university librarian, into one of the most important and popular voices in twentieth-century poetry. Part 2, Artistic Strategies, explores a range of methodologies and aesthetic influences by which Larkin was empowered to create poetry at once both accessible and profound. Part 3, Reading Larkin, provides detailed critical commentary on many of the poems from his three major collections, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. Part 4, Reception, outlines the history of Larkin's reputation from the mid-1950s to the present, examining the debates to which his poetry has given rise. John Gilroy teaches at Anglia Ruskin University and for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.

Laura Vivanco's study challenges the idea that Harlequin Mills & Boon romances are merely mass-produced commodities, churned out in accordance with a strict and unchanging formula. She argues that many are well-written, skilfully crafted works, and that some are small masterpieces. For Love and Money demonstrates the variety that exists beneath the covers of Harlequin Mills & Boon romances. They range from paranormal romances to novels resembling chick lit, and many have addressed serious issues, including the plight of post-Second World War refugees, threats to marine mammals, and HIV/AIDS. The genre draws inspiration from Shakespearean comedies and Austen's novels, as well as from other forms of popular culture."Laura Vivanco's For Love and Money is an impressive study of the popular fiction of Harlequin Mills and Boon that is a must read for any student of popular fiction and for those who write and love the genre" - Liz Fielding, author of over 50 Harlequin Mills & Boon romances.

The book begins with an overview of metaethics and a rejection of the metaethics/normative ethics distinction, and discusses the strengths and limitations of the popular idea that morality is a set of rules for how we treat one another. It then explains subjectivist, intersubjectivist, and objectivist accounts of the truth conditions of moral statements,. It considers Divine Command Theory and Kant's categorical imperatives, in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, along with David Hume's arguments in A Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals, and A. J. Ayer's 'emotivism'. The Final chapter sketches a naturalist objectivism and suggests that the obstacles to its acceptance are typically grounded on spurious asymmetries between ethics and other disciplines. The author is tutor in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.

This book places Wordsworth's revolutionary poetic practice, in Lyrical Ballads, in the context of a revolutionary age. It considers Wordsworth's provocative theories of how poetry should work, and includes a treatment of the famous 'Preface' to Lyrical Ballads, one of the great poetic manifestos. The main part of the book offers illuminating commentary and questions on the poems, designed to encourage readers to accept Wordsworth's invitation to 'wrestle' with the author. A final section discusses contemporary, Victorian and recent critical approaches to Wordsworth and includes an annotated guide to further reading. Richard Gravil's books include Romantic Dialogues: Anglo-American Continuities, 1776-1862 (Palgrave 2000), Wordsworth's Bardic Vocation, 1787-1842 (Palgrave 2003) And Wordsworth and Helen Maria Williams; or, the Perils of Sensibility (2010), all now available from Lulu. He is also co-editor of the monumental Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth (2015).

Paul McDonald's book is the second in the Humanities Ebooks Contemporary American Literature Series, edited by Christopher Gair and Aliki Varvogli. Given that postmodernism has been associated with doubt, chaos, relativism and the disappearance of reality, it may appear difficult to reconcile with American optimism. Laughing at the Darkness demonstrates that this is not always the case. In examining the work of, among others, Sherman Alexie, Woody Allen, Douglas Coupland, Jonathan Safran Foer, Bill Hicks, David Mamet, and Philip Roth, McDonald shows how American humourists bring their comedy to bear on some of the negative implications of philosophical postmodernism and, in so doing, explore ways of reclaiming value. Paul McDonald is the author of three other HEB titles, The Philosophy of Humour, Reading Morrison's Beloved, and Reading Heller's Catch-22, all available from Lulu.

Literature written in English by American writers of Portuguese descent has come of age with the acclaimed work of Frank Gaspar and Katherine Vaz. This study attempts to explore America's understanding of its ethnic minorities, and the writers' own ethnic pride and celebration of their roots. It includes a full length analysis of works by Thomas Braga, Julian Silva, Alfred Lewis, Charles Felix and other voices. Born in Portugal in 1961, Reinaldo Francisco Silva emigrated to America in 1967 at age 6, settling in Newark, New Jersey. He has lectured at Rutgers University, New York University, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Seton Hall University, and is currently Assistant Professor of English at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. His book, Representations of the Portuguese in American Literature was published by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2008. This title is available as a PDF ebook from Humanities-Ebooks.co.uk and for libraries from Ebrary, EBSCO and Ingram.