Literature & Poetry

"An informed and sympathetic portrait of a troubled mind and humble heart." --Kirkus Reviews

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) is one of the most significant and challenging of 20th century theologians. This guide shows how his reworking of theology around the transcendentals of being, the beautiful, the good and the true, is influenced not just by classical philosophy and theology but also by his involvement with contemporary figures.

D. H. Lawrence wrote in 1914, 'Primarily I am a passionately religious man, and my novels must be written from the depths of my religious experience.' Although he had broken with the Congregationalist faith of his childhood by his early twenties, Lawrence remained throughout his writing life a passionately ...

A bestselling author in his own time and long after, Sir Walter Scott was not only a writer of thrilling tales of romance and adventure but also an insightful historical thinker and literary craftsman. Over the last two decades, scholars have come to see him as an important figure in Romantic-period ...

A biography of one of the most important writers in English of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. It offers fresh insights into his life and work, concentrating on the themes, patterns, relationships, ideas and language common to his life and creative output.

Provides an overview of the novel, "The Heart of Darkness". This book offers discussions of the narrative structure and the narrators. It includes chapters analysing the characters in relation to the text's themes, issues and historical context.

Features poems that seem earnest one moment and flippant the next, and will see the poet rotating his caustic fire from high-society cocktail parties to street-level poverty, genocide to Obamacare, New York to Syria. This collection is a rhymed magnificence of sexual, historical, and cultural exuberance.

Mick Imlah's second and long-awaited collection The Lost Leader was published to acclaim in 2008, shortly before his early death in January 2009.

Something is wrong.' - 'Night'

Frederick Seidel - the 'ghoul' (Chicago Review), the 'triumphant outsider' (Contemporary Poetry Review) - returns with a dangerous new collection of poems. Nice Weather presents the sexual and political themes that have long preoccupied Seidel - and thrilled and offended his readers.

American poet born between 1951 and 1977 who was not influenced by popular music and the paradigm shift that occurred in the country ... Under the Rock Umbrella brings together the best poets influenced by this powerful era in music to allow us to examine the music of each poet's own verse. --Mercer ...

An examination of the hero figure in the stories of two major Victorian authors of children's literature and the complex way in which they engaged with the dominant ideologies of the time.

This book considers the kinds of responsibility which modern lyric poetry takes on, or to which it makes itself subject - social, cultural, political, aesthetic and personal.

and: A Rambling Fancy: In the Footsteps of Jane Austen, a travel book about Jane Austen's life and locations.Caroline's articles, book reviews and author interviews have appeared in The Times, The Independent on Sunday, Mslexia, newbooks and Books for Keeps.

A tribute to the dying art of letter writing celebrates the promise and relevance of hand-written letters in a world increasingly driven by technology, showcasing powerful examples by such writers as Samuel Richardson, Wilfred Owens and Jane Austen. --Publishers Description.

Presents poetry that is concerned with permeability: voices, places, the real and the dreamed, the present and the past, colliding and intersecting and spilling over into each other.

Part literary mystery, part biography, part curiosity, here is the short, charming (and true) story of one man's obsession with Marcel Proust, and his decades-long quest to collect everything that once belonged to the writer - right down to his overcoat

"In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante's Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning--a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss. Where ...

Christopher Reid's new collection is a quartet of works for voice, opening with the brisk and brightly coloured monologue of Professor Winterthorn - recently widowed, soon to be retired, who decides on impulse to attend a conference (on 'Nonsense and the Pursuit of Futility as strategies...') in California.