Read by millions of students over seven editions, The Norton Anthology of English Literature remains the most trusted undergraduate survey of English literature available and one of the most successful college texts ever published.

A pathbreaking book of literary criticism is now reissued with a new introduction by Lisa Appignanesi that speaks to how The Madwoman in the Attic set the groundwork for subsequent generations of scholars writing about women writers, and why the book still feels fresh some four decades later.

"An illustrated biography of the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking"--

From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies. Features a new Afterword by Malcolm. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In this examination of the monster as cultural object, Judith Halberstam offers a rereading of the monstrous that revises our view of the Gothic. Moving from the nineteenth century and the works of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Oscar Wilde's the Picture of Dorian Gray to contemporary horror film exemplified by such movies as Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Candyman. Skin Shows understands the Gothic as a versatile technology, a means of producing monsters that is constantly being rewritten by historically and culturally conditioned fears generated by a shared sense of otherness and difference. Deploying feminist and queer approaches to the monstrous body, Halberstam views the Gothic as a broad-based cultural phenomenon that supports and sustains the economic, social, and sexual hierarchies of the time. She resists familiar psychoanalytic critiques and cautions against any interpretive attempt to reduce the affective power of the monstrous to a single factor. The nineteenth-century monster is shown, for example, as configuring otherness as an amalgam of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Invoking Foucault, Halberstam describes the history of monsters in terms of its shifting relation to the body and its representations. As a result, her readings of familiar texts are radically new. She locates psychoanalysis itself within the gothic tradition and sees sexuality as a beast created in nineteenth century literature. Excessive interpretability, Halberstam argues, whether in film, literature, or in the culture at large, is the actual hallmark of monstrosity.

The specific course of the Reformation in England in the 16th-17th centuries brought about interest in the Jewish Bible, i.e. the Old Testament, and the emergence of a self-image held by the British that they constitute a people of the Book, beside the Jews. This, in turn, gave rise to philosemitism, which marked British culture from the days of Cromwell to those of Churchill, being tinged in various tones, from millenarianism to philo-Zionism. However, the tradition of philosemitism in England was accompanied by manifestations of antisemitism; the same people who extolled the Jews opposed their admission to Parliament; people who defended Jewish rights in the 18th-19th centuries often shared anti-Jewish stereotypes of their time; and leaders who sympathized with Zionism could believe in a Jewish conspiracy against Christian civilization. Ch. 4 (pp. 83-117), "Fictional Heroes and Heroines", deals with 19th-century literature and shows how some writers (e.g. Walter Scott, Dickens, Trollope) could combine philosemitic and antisemitic motifs in their literary works.

A journalist's account of the London trial of David Irving vs. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, held in January-April 2000, interspersed with reflections on Holocaust memory and denial. The case became a Holocaust trial, albeit without perpetrators and victims. It did not generate a new narrative of the Holocaust, a revisionist one, as Irving had hoped. Without endorsing Irving's views, defends his right to historical dissent and regrets that his reputation as an outstanding historian was undermined. Contends that the critics of Irving's views, including Lipstadt, misinterpreted his writing as an outgrowth of postmodern deconstruction; what Irving assaulted was not rationalism and history as a science, but the Jews. His main motive was antisemitism. Contends that the depoliticized myth of the "Nazi war against the Jews", characteristic of some historiographic works, made the deniers' task easier. Believes that the Jews are not immune to critical analysis of their history; however, Irving crossed the divide between legitimate criticism and prejudiced vilification of the Jews as a people.

Elizabeth I is one of England's most admired and celebrated rulers. She is also one of its most iconic: her image is familiar from paintings, film and television. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection of essays examines the origins and development of the image and myths that came to surround the Virgin Queen. The essays question the prevailing assumptions about the mythic Elizabeth and challenge the view that she was unambiguously celebrated in the literature and portraiture of the early modern era. They explain how the most familiar myths surrounding the queen developed from the concerns of her contemporaries and yet continue to reverberate today. Published to mark the 400th anniversary of the queen's death, this volume will appeal to all those with an interest in the historiography of Elizabeth's reign and Elizabethan, and Jacobean, poets, dramatists and artists.

"The words of Jesus can be as mysterious as they are familiar. For those seeking greater understanding of the Gospels through storytelling and poetry comes this book by Andrew Klavan, who chronicles his own inspiring, late-in-life journey to achieve a fresh perspective and deep connection to Jesus's most well-known and complex biblical passages"--

From literature, social chronicles, and family documents comes a study of the evolution and social role of the English country house since the Middle Ages

At the time of its first appearance in 1985 Between Men was viewed as an important intervention into Feminist as well as Gay and Lesbian studies. It was an important book because it argued that "sexuality" and "desire" were not a historical phenomenon but carefully managed social constructs. This insight (that actually originated with Michael Foucault) is often viewed as anti-humanist or post-humanist because it argues that men and women are simply the products of patriarchal power relations over which they have no control. By mobilizing Foucault's theories of the history of sexuality Sedgwick re-fashions Feminism and Gay and Lesbian Studies to make it seem as though Feminism and Gay and Lesbian studies are ideally situated to continue those interventions into the history of sexuality begun by Foucault.

The best-selling author of Vagina, Give Me Liberty, and The End of America illuminates a dramatic buried story of gay history--how a single English law in 1857 led to a maelstrom, with reverberations lasting down to our day.

"This powerful, meticulously researched novel is a moving tale of one girl's struggle against a world in turmoil. In 1930s Berlin, choked by the tightening of Hitler's fist, the Klein family are gradually losing everything that is precious to them. Their fifteen-year-old daughter, Rosa, slips out of Germany on a Kindertransport train to begin a new life in England. Charged with the task of securing a safe passage for her family, she vows that she will not rest until they are safe. But as war breaks out and she loses contact with her parents, Rosa finds herself wondering if there are some vows that can't be kept ...A sweeping tale of love and loss, with the poignant story of the Kindertransport at its heart, this is an exceptional accomplishment from one of Britain's bravest and most vibrant young writers."

In recent years, scholars from a variety of disciplines have addressed many perplexing questions about the Industrial Revolution in all its aspects. Understandably, economics has become the focal point for these efforts as professional economics have sought to resolve some of the controversies surrounding this topic. First published in 1985, this collection contains ten key essays written by leading economists on the subject of the Industrial Revloution. Among the questions discussed are the causes for the pre-eminence of Britian, the roles of the inputs for growth (capital, labor, technical progress), the importance of demand factors, the relation between agricultural progress and the Industrial Revolution, and the standard of living debate. The essays demonstrate that the application of fresh viewpoints to the literature has given us a considerable new body of data at our disposal, making it possible to test commonly held hypotheses. In addition, this new data has enabled economists to apply a more rigorous logic to the thinking about the Industrial Revolution, thus sharpening many issues heretofore blurred by slipshod methodology and internal inconsistencies.

Tony Robinson takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about the British! It's history, but not as we know it! Find out everything you ever needed to know in this brilliant, action-packed, fact-filled book including: - How to avoid scurvy - Why bright red isn't the best colour for a soldier's uniform - Why not being able to swim was considered an advantage, and - How to cure the most gruesome tropical diseases