Alec Wilkinson writes of Maxwell as mentor; Edward Hirsch remembers him in old age; Charles Baxter illuminates the magnificent novel So Long, See You Tomorrow; Ben Cheever recalls Maxwell and his own father; Donna Tartt vividly describes Maxwell's kindness to herself as a first novelist; and Michael Collier admires him as a supreme literary correspondent. Other appreciations include insightful pieces by Alice Munro, Anthony Hecht, a poem by John Updike, and a brief tribute from Paula Fox. Ending this splendid collection is Maxwell himself, in the unpublished speech "The Writer as Illusionist."... View More...
In this varied collection of commemorative essays, fiction, and poetry, some of today's most important writers pay tribute to the genius of Flannery O'Connor. Included are contributions from both those who called O'Connor a friend and those who have learned from her as students through the timelessness of her written word. The diversity and avidity of those who revere the wry Georgia writer as an artist is testimony to the genius of a woman whose continuing influence extends well beyond the insularity of her world and brevity of her life.
Published annually by Duquesne University Press as an important forum for Milton scholarship and criticism, Milton Studies focuses on various aspects of John Milton's life and writing, including biography; literary history; Milton's work in its literary, intellectual, political, or cultural contexts; Milton's influence on or relationship to other writers; and the history of critical response to his work. The eight essays in this volume offer a variety of fresh subjects and cutting-edge approaches to Milton's prose and poetry.The nine essays in this volume offer extraordinary coverage of Milton... View More...
In this beautiful book of photographs and short essays, some of Appalachia's best-known writers profile each other and the place they call home. Edited by Bloodroot novelist Amy Greene and her husband Trent Thomson, this book also features Wendell Berry, Lee Smith, Crystal Wilkinson, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Silas House, Jason Kyle Howard, Adriana Trigiani, and others. Part photo book, part essay collection, and all praise for the mountains and valleys of the region, this book collects some of the region's greatest literary treasures for a generation of readers. View More...
Called the best English prose writer of this century by Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood is best known for "Goodbye to Berlin" the inspiration for the musical "Cabaret" but is also the author of plays, novels, and diaries. "The Isherwood Century "gathers twenty-four essays and interviews offering a fresh, in-depth view of Isherwood, his literary legacy, and his continuing influence as both a literary and a gay pioneer." View More...
The Prospect of Lyric, edited by Bainard Cowan Reading a great lyric poem we know that lyric is more than a convention, that it speaks of an encounter of genuine depth. But what is the terrain of that encounter? The fourth in the Genres of Literature series enters into the heart of the lyric experience, with General Editor Louise Cowan analyzing the lyric impulse, its ontological ground, and its relation to the life of a culture in her Introduction to the volume. The following sixteen essays examine key poets and texts, from Biblical and Greek antiquity through the pinnacles of the English lyr... View More...
"Discovering Proust is like wandering through a totally unfamiliar land and finding it peopled with kindred spirits and sister souls and fellow countrymen . . . They speak our language, our dialect, share our blind-spots and are awkward in exactly the same way we are, just as their manner of lacing every access of sorrow with slapstick reminds us so much of how we do it when we are sad and wish to hide it, that surely we are not alone and not as strange as we feared we were. And here lies the paradox. So long as a writer tells us what he and only he can see, then surely he speaks our language.... View More...
This first critical biography of Arturo Islas (1938-1991) brings to life the complex and overlapping worlds inhabited by the gay Chicano poet, novelist, scholar, and professor. Gracefully written and deeply researched, Dancing with Ghosts considers both the larger questions of Islas's life-his sexuality, racial identification, and political personality-and the events of his everyday existence, from his childhood in the borderlands of El Paso to his adulthood in San Francisco and at Stanford University. Frederick Aldama portrays the many facets of Islas's engaging and often contradictory person... View More...
Larry Allums, editor Louise Cowan, general editor The community of scholar-critics that brought out The Terrain of Comedy has produced the second volume in its studies of the four genres, with Larry Allums as editor. Louise Cowan postulates a culture-generating cosmos as the identifying mark of epic. The essays illustrate the applicability of her theory of genres to major works in the epic tradition. An excellent resource for those studying the social, psychological and historical aspects of epic as a literary art form. Dallas Institute Publications publishes works concerned with the imaginati... View More...
The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more. Each of these groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and the ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers. This exciting new volume provides a freshly inclusive account of literature in England in the per... View More...
Poet, dramatist, novelist, critic, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones, vividly recounts his crusading role in African American literature. A driving force behind the Black Arts Movement, the prolific Baraka retells his experiences from his participation in avant-garde literature after World War II and his role in Black nationalism after the assassination of Malcolm X to his conversion to Islam and his commitments to an international socialist vision. When The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones was first published in 1984, the publisher made substantial cuts in the copy. ... View More...
