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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2023

        The penny politics of Victorian popular fiction

        by Rob Breton

        Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2016

        The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

        by Luo Guan Zhong

        First of the five great works of traditional prose fiction, this master narrative transforms history into epic and has thereby educated and entertained readers of five centuries with unforgettable exemplars of martial and civic virtue, of personal fidelity and political treachery. "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." Echoing the rhythms of Chinese history itself, the monumental tale Three Kingdoms begins. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this fourteenth-century masterpiece continues to be loved and read throughout China today. Three Kingdoms portrays a fateful moment at the end of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) when the future of the Chinese empire lay in the balance.

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        October 2023

        Crafting crime fiction

        by Henry Sutton

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2021

        Acts of supremacy

        by J. Bratton, Richard Cave, Brendan Gregory, Michael Pickering

        Imperialist discourse interacted with regional and class discourses. Imperialism's incorporation of Welsh, Scots and Irish identities, was both necessary to its own success and one of its most powerful functions in terms of the control of British society. Most cultures have a place for the concept of heroism, and for the heroic figure in narrative fiction; stage heroes are part of the drama's definition of self, the exploration and understanding of personal identity. Theatrical and quasi-theatrical presentations, whether in music hall, clubroom, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre or the streets and ceremonial spaces of the capital, contributed to that much-discussed national mood. This book examines the theatre as the locus for nineteenth century discourses of power and the use of stereotype in productions of the Shakespearean history canon. It discusses the development of the working class and naval hero myth of Jack Tar, the portrayal of Ireland and the Irish, and the portrayal of British India on the spectacular exhibition stage. The racial implications of the ubiquitous black-face minstrelsy are focused upon. The ideology cluster which made up the imperial mindset had the capacity to re-arrange and re-interpret history and to influence the portrayal of the tragic or comic potential of personal dilemmas. Though the British may have prided themselves on having preceded America in the abolition of slavery and thus outpacing Brother Jonathan in humanitarian philanthropy, abnegation of hierarchisation and the acceptance of equality of status between black and white ethnic groups was not part of that achievement.

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        Children's & YA

        Story Story, Story Come

        12 Reimagined Tales From Africa

        by Maïmouna Jallow

        However, the age-old tradition of oral storytelling is on the decline. Rapid urbanisation, the breakdown of the extended family, technology and so on have altered our social fabric. Whilst our daily lives are still peppered with snippets of remembered words of wisdom and proverbs, the reality is that a new generation of Africans have never had the pleasure of listening to a story being told by a storyteller. Story, Story! Story Come! is a contribution to larger efforts to revive storytelling in Africa and beyond. Through a global online contest, Positively African invited African writers, wherever they lived and whatever their age, to write a folktale – either based on an old one, or newly imagined. The challenge was to develop new narratives that speak to issues that are fundamental to Africa’s development in a way that is unconventional but true to our past traditions of folktale and oral storytelling. The stories needed to contain life lessons that are relevant for both young and old, however writers were invited to be as inventive and disruptive as they wished in terms of theme, form, language, characters, imagery and context. The ten winning stories are refreshingly imaginative and tackle a mix of issues. We criss-cross from South Sudan to South Africa, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. Some stories offer valuable moral lessons on greed and pride; others celebrate bravery, perseverance and friendship. One story takes us to a real archaeological site in Niger where a young girl imagines the future. In another, African water spirits share a world with a Beyoncé-obsessed teen that is taught a big lesson in humility. We have also included two additional stories, one by author and publishing partner Zukiswa Wanner and another by the editor of the anthology, Maimouna Jallow. One thing that they all have in common is that they speak to issues we face globally today, from an African perspective.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2023

        The politics of male friendship in contemporary American fiction

        by Michael Kalisch

        How might our friendships shape our politics? This book examines how contemporary American fiction has rediscovered the concept of civic friendship and revived a long tradition of imagining male friendship as interlinked with the promises and paradoxes of democracy in the United States. Bringing into dialogue the work of a wide range of authors - including Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, and Teju Cole - this innovative study advances a compelling new account of the political and intellectual fabric of the American novel today.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2017

        Hei Wa

        by Mu Ling

        A fine collection of science fiction by children’s literature writer Mu Ling. Mu Ling’s science fictions pursue a scientific basis of “organic imagination”, has a positive outlook and good spirit of seeking truth. This series collects Mu Ling’s three masterpieces full of fantasy and humanistic concern: Dream Machine, Hei Wa, Yu Wang Bei Mi, which are rare sci-fi theme in children’s literature works of China. This series will lead children step by step to “hard science fiction” which is full of intellectual challenges through “light science fiction” and “soft science fiction”.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2017

        Dream Machine

        by Mu Ling

        A fine collection of science fiction by children’s literature writer Mu Ling. Mu Ling’s science fictions pursue a scientific basis of “organic imagination”, has a positive outlook and good spirit of seeking truth. This series collects Mu Ling’s three masterpieces full of fantasy and humanistic concern: Dream Machine, Hei Wa, Yu Wang Bei Mi, which are rare sci-fi theme in children’s literature works of China. This series will lead children step by step to “hard science fiction” which is full of intellectual challenges through “light science fiction” and “soft science fiction”.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2017

        Yu Wang Bei Mi

        by Mu Ling

        A fine collection of science fiction by children’s literature writer Mu Ling. Mu Ling’s science fictions pursue a scientific basis of “organic imagination”, has a positive outlook and good spirit of seeking truth. This series collects Mu Ling’s three masterpieces full of fantasy and humanistic concern: Dream Machine, Hei Wa, Yu Wang Bei Mi, which are rare sci-fi theme in children’s literature works of China. This series will lead children step by step to “hard science fiction” which is full of intellectual challenges through “light science fiction” and “soft science fiction”.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 1995

        Der Glasmensch und andere Science-fiction-Geschichten

        by Marcus Hammerschmitt, Franz Rottensteiner, Marcus Hammerschmitt

        Marcus Hammerschmitt schreibt Science-fiction-Erzählungen, die technologische Phantasie, psychologische Einsicht, Lust am gedanklichen Experiment und poetische Erfindungskraft vereinen. Wie Herbert W. Franke oder Peter Schattschneider basiert er seine Geschichten auf einer soliden Grundlage, entwickelt seine Szenarios und Fabeln spielerisch, verknüpft sie aber dramatisch mit den größeren Problemen von Ökologie einerseits und den Zweifeln und inneren Konflikten des einzelnen andererseits.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        November 2022

        Kate Atkinson

        by Armelle Parey

        This timely in-depth study of award-winning Kate Atkinson's work provides a welcome comprehensive overview of the novels, play and short stories. It explores the major themes and aesthetic concerns in her fiction. Combining close analysis and literary contextualisation, it situates her multi-faceted work in terms of a hybridisation of genres and innovative narrative strategies to evoke contemporary issues and well as the past. Chapters offer insights into each major publication (from Behind the Scenes at the Museum to Big Sky, the latest instalment in the Brodie sequence, through the celebrated Life After Life and subsequent re-imaginings of the war) in relation to the key concerns of Atkinson's fiction, including self-narrativisation, history, memory and women's lives.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2023

        The gift of narrative in medieval England

        by Nicholas Perkins

        This invigorating study places medieval romance narrative in dialogue with theories and practices of gift and exchange, opening new approaches to questions of storytelling, agency, gender and materiality in some of the most engaging literature from the Middle Ages. It argues that the dynamics of the gift are powerfully at work in romances: through exchanges of objects and people; repeated patterns of love, loyalty and revenge; promises made or broken; and the complex effects that time works on such objects, exchanges and promises. Ranging from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, and including close discussions of poetry by Chaucer, the Gawain-Poet and romances in the Auchinleck Manuscript, this book will prompt new ideas and debate amongst students and scholars of medieval literature, as well as anyone curious about the pleasures that romance narratives bring.

      • Trusted Partner
        September 2017

        The Stories in the World

        by Mother Tigerskin

        This is a book telling stories about all the hot topics in China such as stock market, house slave, emigrant, old-age care, marriage, divorce, photoshop etc. Mother Tigerskin writes really sharp and deep around these topics as short stories.

      • Family & home stories (Children's/YA)
        February 1905

        Little Women

        by Louise May Alcott

        Little Women "has been read as a romance or as a quest, or both. It has been read as a family drama that validates virtue over wealth", but also "as a means of escaping that life by women who knew its gender constraints only too well".[6]:34 According to Sarah Elbert, Alcott created a new form of literature, one that took elements from Romantic children's fiction and combined it with others from sentimental novels, resulting in a totally new format. Elbert argued that within Little Women can be found the first vision of the "All-American girl" and that her multiple aspects are embodied in the differing March sisters.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2017

        Imperialism and juvenile literature

        by Jeffrey Richards

        Popular culture is invariably a vehicle for the dominant ideas of its age. Never was this truer than in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when it reflected the nationalist and imperialist ideologies current throughout Europe. It both reflects popular attitudes, ideas and preconceptions and it generates support for selected views and opinions. This book examines the various media through which nationalist ideas were conveyed in late-Victorian and Edwardian times: in the theatre, "ethnic" shows, juvenile literature, education and the iconography of popular art. It seeks to examine in detail the articulation and diffusion of imperialism in the field of juvenile literature by stressing its pervasiveness across boundaries of class, nation and gender. It analyses the production, distribution and marketing of imperially-charged juvenile fiction, stressing the significance of the Victorians' discovery of adolescence, technological advance and educational reforms as the context of the great expansion of such literature. An overview of the phenomenon of Robinson Crusoe follows, tracing the process of its transformation into a classic text of imperialism and imperial masculinity for boys. The imperial commitment took to the air in the form of the heroic airmen of inter-war fiction. The book highlights that athleticism, imperialism and militarism become enmeshed at the public schools. It also explores the promotion of imperialism and imperialist role models in fiction for girls, particularly Girl Guide stories.

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