The dazzling, romantic fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald manages to captivate each new generation of readers. This critical introduction, written specifically for students, offers insightful yet accessible literary criticism for five novels: DEGREESUThis Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and DEGREESUThe Last Tycoon. A full chapter is devoted to examining each of these works, with an indepth discussion of character development, thematic concerns and plot structure. The introduction to each novel traces its genesis and the critical...

Charles Dickens was the most popular writer of his age and is still considered one of the world's greatest novelists. This well-written study surveys his unusual and prolific life, relating his fiction writings to his concerns and active involvement with social conditions of early Victorian England. Glancy skillfully takes the reader back in time to appreciate the historical settings that inspired works like Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities. An entire chapter is devoted to each of these works, as well as to David Copperfield, Hard Times, the...

Animal Farm and 1984, in their shocking portrayals of society gone wrong, are among the rare works of fiction that will forever change the way we think. Written with students and general readers in mind, this volume examines George Orwell's powerful fictional writing, as well as his provocative documentaries and essays. Students will gain an appreciation for the many levels of meaning in the allegorical Animal Farm and the startlingly prescient 1984. Brunsdale does a masterful job of showing how personal and world events came together in Orwell's writing. A...

This critical introduction to Arthur Miller provides an indispensable aid for students and general readers to understand the depth and complexity of some of America's most important dramatic works. Beginning with a discussion of his life, this work traces not only Miller's theatrical career, but his formulative experiences with the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Detailed discussions of eight important plays are organized around the social and moral themes Miller derived from such events; these themes are evident in such works as Death of...

Mark Twain's legacy is an extensive canon of writings that includes some of the most widely read, staged, debated, reinterpreted, and filmed works ever. This introductory critical study helps students and general readers appreciate the myriad perspectives of the man, his life, and his contributions to American literature. A fresh biographical account traces Twain's colorful life through his varied careers and adventures, to his rise to national prominence as a writer of short stories, to the creation of masterpieces like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Also examined are the...

From his earliest success in 1945 with the poignant The Glass Menagerie, until his final curtain call with the 1979 production of The Two-Character Play, Tennessee Williams never stopped experimenting with theatrical techniques and striving to explain his richly provocative ideas. This new critical study of Williams traces the shape of the playwright's life and career, both full of wanderings, failures, love, anguish, and unparalleled triumphs. Incorporating much of the new information that is emerging in the recent publication of letters, biographies, and previously...

Willa Cather's elegiac tales of the pioneer experience on the American frontier continue to captivate new generations of readers. Written especially for students, this critical introduction offers insightful yet accessible criticism of Cather's most widely read novels. A full chapter examines each work, with full discussions of character development, thematic concerns, plot, critical reception, and historical contexts. Students will find this book a valuable guide to this great American author.

The volume covers such enduring works as "Alexander's Bridge, " "O Pioneers , " "The Song of...

Born into a family of writers, Stephen Crane wrote his first poem, I'd Rather Have when he was eight, and his first short story, Uncle Jake and the Bell-Handle, at around the age of 13. Despite never having completed a course of study at any of the colleges he attended, Crane decided, in the spring of 1891, to pursue a career as a writer. While working as a journalist, he penned Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a novella written in the Naturalist style that depicted the seaminess of urban tenement life. Enduring his own poverty, and taking temporary reporting jobs, Crane completed his...

In the mid- late 1800s and early 1900s, Thomas Hardy produced a plethora of eclectic works that were considered too candid and even sacrilegious for their time. Hardy's publishing of fiction, drama, poetry, and the short story ranks him with Shakespeare, one of few other authors in the English language to write major works in more than one literary genre. Growing up, Hardy apprenticed as an architect but soon realized his true calling was writing. He based much of his work on his homeland and local culture in England, creating the fictional county of Wessex, the setting for most of his...

The Student Companion to James Fenimore Cooper At the dawn of America's continental empire, James Fenimore Cooper in the early 1800s became the new nation's first major novelist, inaugurating a great period in American literature and bequeathing a number of classic texts including the Leather-Stocking Tales. This "Companion" to Cooper's writings appeals to high school and college students by outlining Cooper's most frequently assigned novels and establishing their historical backgrounds concerning American Indians and the early United States. Two opening chapters review the author's life...