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Barthes: A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan Culler
Roland Barthes: A Very Short Introduction elucidates the varied theoretical contributions of Roland Barthes, whose lifelong fascination was with the way people make their world ...
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The Beats: A Very Short Introduction
David Sterritt
The Beats: A Very Short Introduction offers an overview of the social, cultural, and aesthetic sensibilities of the Beats, bringing out the similarities that connected them, ...
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Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction
John Sutherland
Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction shows that bestseller lists monitor one of the strongest pulses in modern literature and are therefore worthy of serious study. It lifts ...
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C. S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction
James Como
Beloved by children and adults worldwide, the writings of C. S. Lewis have a broad and enduring appeal. Although best known for the iconic Chronicles of Narnia series, C. S. Lewis was a man ...
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Charles Dickens: A Very Short Introduction
Jenny Hartley
Charles Dickens is credited with creating some of the world’s best-known fictional characters, and is widely regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian age. Charles Dickens: A Very ...
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Children's Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Kimberley Reynolds
Children's Literature: A Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the history of children's literature as it has developed in English, introducing key debates, ...
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Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Sabina Knight
Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction tells the story of Chinese literature from antiquity to the present, focusing on the key role literary culture played in ...
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Colonial Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Rolena Adorno
Colonial Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction provides a vivid account of the literary culture of the Spanish-speaking Americas from the time of Columbus to ...
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Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
Matthew Bevis
Comedy: A Very Short Introduction studies written forms of comedy such as prose fiction, poetry, caricatures, and cartoons. There are also performance forms of comedy such as ...
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Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Ben Hutchinson
Comparative literature is both the past and the future of literary studies. Its history is intimately linked to the political upheavals of modernity: from colonial empire-building in the ...
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Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction
Robert Eaglestone
Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction explores a wide and diverse field, now global in dimension, with an enormous range of novels and writers that continues to grow ...
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Crime Fiction: A Very Short Introduction
Richard Bradford
Crime Fiction: A Very Short Introduction explores the history of ‘crime fiction’ and the various definitions of the genre and considers how it has developed over time. ...
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Dante: A Very Short Introduction
Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
Dante: A Very Short Introduction examines the main themes and issues that run through all of Dante’s work, ranging from autobiography, to understanding God, and the order of ...
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Decadence: A Very Short Introduction
David Weir
Decadence: A Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the culture of decadence—the artistic expression of a conflicted sense of modernity—by tracing its origin in ...
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Dictionaries: A Very Short Introduction
Lynda Mugglestone
Dictionaries: A Very Short Introduction demonstrates that dictionaries are not merely works which list the words and meanings of a language. They are human products, reflecting ...
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English Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan Bate
English Literature: A Very Short Introduction considers such diverse topics as the birth of the novel, the brilliance of English comedy, the deep Englishness of landscape ...
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Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction
Marina Warner
The characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over adults and children for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from ...
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French Literature: A Very Short Introduction
John D. Lyons
French Literature: A Very Short Introduction examines texts that portray protagonists whose adventures and conflicts reveal shifts in literary and social practices. It explores ...
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Geoffrey Chaucer: A Very Short Introduction
David Wallace
Originally writing over 600 years ago, Geoffrey Chaucer is today enjoying a global renaissance. Why do poets, translators, and audiences from so many cultures and different parts of the ...
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German Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Nicholas Boyle
German writers, from Luther and Goethe to Heine, Brecht, and Günter Grass, have had a profound influence on the modern world. German Literature: A Very Short Introduction traces the course ...
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Goethe: A Very Short Introduction
Ritchie Robertson
Goethe: A Very Short Introduction covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer ...
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The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction
Nick Groom
The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction shows that the concept of ‘Gothic’ is wildly diverse. It can refer to ecclesiastical architecture, supernatural fiction, cult horror ...
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Italian Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
Italian Literature: A Very Short Introduction considers Italian literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. Examining themes such as regional identities, political ...
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Kafka: A Very Short Introduction
Ritchie Robertson
Attending both to Kafka's crisis-ridden life and to the subtleties of his art, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction shows how his work explores such characteristically modern themes as the ...
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Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)
Jonathan Culler
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction addresses the questions: What is literary theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is ...
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The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction
John Phillips
The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction aims to disentangle the ‘real’ Marquis de Sade from his mythical and demonic reputation of the past two hundred years by ...
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Medieval Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Elaine Treharne
Medieval Literature: A Very Short Introduction provides a compelling account of the emergence of the earliest literature in Britain and Ireland, including English, Welsh, ...
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Modern Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria
In the 1960s, Latin American literature became known worldwide as never before, but few know about the literary tradition from which these writers emerged. Modern Latin American Literature: ...
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Modernism: A Very Short Introduction
Christopher Butler
Modernism: A Very Short Introduction examines how and why modernism began, what it is, how it has gradually informed all aspects of 20th and 21st century life. Modernism ...
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Myth: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn)
Robert Segal
Where do myths come from? What is their function and what do they mean? Myth: A Very Short Introduction introduces a wide array of approaches to understanding myth from disciplines as ...
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Native American Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Sean Teuton
Native American literature began over thirty thousand years ago when indigenous people started telling stories of emergence, creation, journey, quest, heroism, and trickery. By setting ...
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Poetry: A Very Short Introduction
Bernard O'Donoghue
Poetry, arguably, has a greater range of conceptual meaning than perhaps any other term in English. At the most basic level everyone can recognize it—it is a kind of literature that uses ...
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Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction
Robert J. C. Young
Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction explores the political, social, and cultural effects of decolonization, continuing the anti-colonial challenge to western dominance. ...
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Reading: A Very Short Introduction
Belinda Jack
Reading: A Very Short Introduction explores the fascinating history of literacy and the opportunities reading opens. For much of human history reading was the preserve of the ...
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Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction
Richard Toye
Rhetoric is often seen as a synonym for shallow, deceptive language, and therefore as something negative. But if it is viewed in more neutral terms, as the ‘art of persuasion’, it is clear ...
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Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction
Michael Ferber
Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction explores the definition of the word ‘Romantic’ and considers its origins. What is Romanticism? Who were the Romantics? and What did they ...
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Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Catriona Kelly
Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction explores the place and importance of literature in Russian culture. How and when did a Russian national literature come into ...
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Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction
David Seed
Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction looks at the emergence of science fiction as a popular genre in the 20th century. It examines science fiction in film and literature ...
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Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction
Bart van Es
Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction explores the full range of the playwright’s comic writing over the course of a career spanning nearly a quarter century of ...
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Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems: A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan F. S. Post
Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems: A Very Short Introduction introduces all of Shakespeare’s poetry: the Sonnets; the two great narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of ...
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Shakespeare's Tragedies: A Very Short Introduction
Stanley Wells
Tragedy, including grief, pain, and suffering, is a common theme in Shakespeare’s plays, often leading to the death of at least one character. Yet such themes can also be found in ...
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Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Jo Labanyi
Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction explores the ways in which it has been read, in and outside Spain, explaining misconceptions, outlining the insights of recent ...
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Leo Tolstoy: A Very Short Introduction
Liza Knapp
War and Peace and Anna Karenina are widely recognized as two of the greatest novels ever written. Their author, Leo Tolstoy, has been honoured as the father of the modern war ...
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Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction
Adrian Poole
Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction addresses questions of tragedy about belief, blame, mourning, revenge, pain, witnessing, timing, and ending and demonstrates the age-old ...
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William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction
Stanley Wells
William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction provides a guide to the life and writings of one of the world’s greatest and best-known dramatists: William Shakespeare. Looking ...
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