A guide to English literature from 1900 to the present day. It combines a series of critical essays on understanding modern literature, drama, poetry and the contemporary historical background, with a complementary A to Z section of detailed entries. The alphabetical section includes references to, and bibliographies for, major authors, plot summaries and critical discussions of principal works, glossaries of important literary terms, and supplementary theoretical background material. A full chronology is also provided, and comprehensive cross-referencing occurs throughout the book. This book provides both thorough descriptions of, and contemporary critical approaches to, text since the late 19th-century, from Henry James, vorticism and the primary texts of modernism, to Jeanette Winterson, science fiction and postmodernism, reflecting the diverse peculiarities of a century of experimentation in literary change.