by Adalaide Morris (2003)
"The writing of H.D. is so linguistically rich and multilayered in structure that it has had almost as many interpretations as it has interpreters, from Freudians to feminists, from classicists to postmodernists. In How to Live/What to Do, however, Adalaide Morris removes the work of this iconic poet, dramatist, and novelist from compartments into which it has historically been placed. As she examines the "ongoingness" of H.D.'s writing, Morris makes an eloquent and compelling case for a consideration of poems - all poems - as forms of cultural mediation, instructive historical documents that engage the reader in wide-ranging contemporary debates and use their acoustical richness to generate tangible cultural effects."--Jacket.
Patricia D. Maida, Nicholas B. Spornick
A Study of Agatha Christie's Detective Fiction. This book explores the inter-relationships between Agatha Christie and her works to seek the wholeness in the Christie experience. The authors perceive an integration in personal experience and moral and aesthetic values between the woman and her art.
Magdalene Redekop
"This is the first study of the work of Alice Munro to focus on her obsession with mothering, and to relate it to the hallucinatory quality of her magic realism. A bizarre collection of clowning mothers parade across the pages of Munro's fiction, playing practical jokes, performing stunts, and dressing in thrift shop disguises that recycle vintage literary images. Paying close attention to their mimicries, Magdalene Redekop studies this parade with the aim of gaining increased understanding of Munro's evolving comic vision. As the outlines of her aesthetic are delineated, it becomes clear that it involves a new way of looking at autobiography and a new way of looking at narrative sequence"--Jacket.
Brian Lumley and Stanley Wiater
"In The Brian Lumley Companion, Lumley aficionados will find an overview of Lumley's career, from his first short fiction up to the present day; essays comparing Lumley and H.P. Lovecraft; a lengthy interview with the author that delves into the heart of Lumley's relationship with the writers and editors who inspired him and the fans who support him; analyses of Lumley's short fiction and novels; and an interview with Bob Eggleton that gives insight into the development of his striking covers for the Necroscope series and other Lumley works." "This companion also includes complete listings of the first publications of each of Lumley's novels, short fiction, and poetry. Major attractions are the detailed concordances that focus on individual novels and series, including the three Psychomech titles, the Dreamlands and Primal Lands series, and each volume in the Necroscope series."--Jacket.
Paul Debreczeny
This study of the effect of literature on readers, both as individuals and as members of social groups, focuses on Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin, as a model for investigating the aesthetic and social functions of literature. The individual reader's response to the literary text is demonstrated in Part One through a broad range of memoirs, diaries, and correspondences in which Russian readers recorded their reactions to Pushkin. Part Two exposes the extent to which individuals' aesthetic responses are conditioned by their social environment. The aura surrounding the personality of an author is the subject of Part Three, in which the author shows how Pushkin's death in a duel with a foreigner contributed to his emergence as a symbol of the Russian nation, and how deep-seated anxiety about national identity gave rise to the Pushkin myth and to the canonization of the poet as martyr. Throughout the book, theoretical arguments are buttressed by close readings of Pushkin's works, especially The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Eugene Onegin, Poltava, Egyptian Nights, and several lyric poems.