{"title":"Cultural History Of Literature","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the rich tapestry of literary evolution with this Cultural History of Literature series. Explore the social, political, and artistic forces that have shaped storytelling across the ages. A must-read for literature enthusiasts.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"detective-fiction-book-charles-j-rzepka-9780745629421","title":"Detective Fiction","description":"Detective Fiction is a clear and compelling look at some of the best known, yet least-understood, characters and texts of the modern day. Charles J. Rzepka traces the history of the genre from its modern beginnings in the early eighteenth century, with the criminal broadsheets and ‘true’ crime stories of The Newgate Calendar, to its present state of diversity, innovation, and worldwide diffusion, in a manner that students and scholars alike will find readable and provocative.  The book focuses particularly on the relationship of detective fiction's emerging ‘puzzle-element’ to the investigative methods of the nascent historical sciences, and to popular cultural attitudes toward history, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. In addition, the author examines the specific impact of urbanization, the rise of the professions, brain science, legal and social reform, war and economic dislocation, class-consciousness, and changing concepts of race and gender. Extended close readings of the classics of Detective Fiction in several ‘Casebook’ essays devoted to seminal works by Poe, Doyle, Sayers, and Chandler show in detail how the genre has responded to these influences over the last century and a half. They also serve to introduce students to a variety of current critical approaches.     Undergraduate students of Detective and Crime Fiction and of genre fiction in general, will find this book essential reading.     ‘Cool, savvy, and utterly compelling: every page of Charles J. Rzepka’s magnificent history of detective fiction displays the forensic panache of the true connoisseur of murder. Commanding an unrivalled breadth of reference and depth of insight, the book is a must-read for everyone interested in detective fiction.’     Nicholas Roe, University of St Andrews          ‘In this sustained analysis of the emergence and development of detective fiction in England and America, Charles Rzepka has produced both a compelling cultural history and a skilful demonstration of what Poe aptly called “the moral activity which disentangles”. It will become an indispensable guide to serious students of detective literature.’     Ronald R. 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It argues that these centuries are, in fundamental ways, the momentous period in our literary history, for they are the long moment in which the category of literature itself emerged as English writing began to insist, for the first time, that it floated free of any social reality or function.  This book also charts the complex mechanisms by which English writing acquired this power in a series of linked close readings of both canonical and more obscure texts. It encloses those readings in five compelling accounts of much broader cultural areas, describing, in particular, the productive relationship of Middle English writing to medieval technology, insurgency, statecraft and cultural place, concluding with an in depth account of the particular arguments, emphases and techniques English writers used to claim a wholly new jurisdiction for their work.   Both this history and its readings are everywhere informed by the most exciting developments in recent Middle English scholarship as well as literary and cultural theory. 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The past is a foreign country, and so too are many of its texts. This readable and provocative book seeks to enhance our understanding of early modern literature by recovering the contexts in which it was originally produced and consumed.  Taking us back to the courts, theatres and marketplaces of early modern England, Jason Scott-Warren reveals the varied ways in which literary texts dovetailed with everyday experience, unlocking the distinctive social practices, economic structures and modes of behaviour that gave them meaning. He shows how the periods most beguiling writings were conditioned by long-forgotten notions of knowledge, nationhood, sexuality and personal identity. Bringing an anthropologists eye to his materials, he offers richly detailed new readings of works from within and beyond the canon, covering a span that stretches from Erasmus and More to Milton and Behn.   Resisting any notion of the period as merely transitional a staging post on the road leading from the medieval to the modern world Scott-Warren reveals the distinctiveness of its literary culture, and equips the reader for fresh encounters with its extraordinary textual legacy. 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The volume achieves a balance between textual analysis and cultural theory that gives it value as an introductory reference source and as an original study and as such will be essential reading for students and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49567935037713,"sku":"GOR005329325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51080965128465,"sku":"NIN9780745629209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52690213896465,"sku":"NLS9780745629209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0745629202.jpg?v=1751263537"},{"product_id":"eighteenth-century-english-literature-book-charlotte-sussman-9780745625157","title":"Eighteenth Century English Literature","description":"This engaging book introduces new readers of eighteenth-century texts to some of the major works, authors, and debates of a key period of literary history. 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The medieval period, as well as the brilliant tradition of Russian lyric poetry from the eighteenth century to the present, are almost completely terra incognita, as are the complex prose experiments of Nikolai Gogol, Nikolai Leskov, Andrei Belyi, and Andrei Platonov. Furthermore, those writers who have made an impact are generally known outside of the contexts in which they wrote and in which their work has been received.  In this engaging book, Andrew Baruch Wachtel and Ilya Vinitsky provide a comprehensive, conceptually challenging history of Russian literature, including prose, poetry and drama. Each of the ten chapters deals with a bounded time period from medieval Russia to the present. In a number of cases, chapters overlap chronologically, thereby allowing a given period to be seen in more than one context. 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This volume will be an excellent textbook for courses on the avant-garde in departments of comparative cultural studies, literature and film studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50006069674257,"sku":"GOR013834931","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50818064351505,"sku":"GOR008217499","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0745627056.jpg?v=1773313274"},{"product_id":"modern-italian-literature-book-ann-hallamore-caesar-9780745628004","title":"Modern Italian Literature","description":"This authoritative and vividly written book brings readers into the heart of Italian literary culture from the 1690s to the present. 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This is a book which will be readily accessible to students and all those interested in Italian culture, and at the same time is based on the most up-to-date scholarship. 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