Now back in print with a new introduction by the author, this is the classic study of America's most admired instant city, from its days as a sleepy Mexican village, through the Gold Rush and into its establishment as a major international port. Roger Lotchin examines the urbanizing influences in San Francisco and compares these to other urban centers, doing so against a diverse backdrop of vigilantes, opium dens, and other unforgettable institutions.
Now back in print with a new introduction by the author, this is the classic study of America's most admired instant city, from its days as a sleepy M...
From "Love Story" in 1970 to "Prizes," his most recent bestseller, Erich Segal has created a body of fiction that testifies to the importance of traditional values and virtues in contemporary life. To drive home his views, Segal revitalizes the sentimental novel, which evokes emotion to assert moral precepts. This study, the first full-length examination of his work, explores the development of his art and analyzes each of his seven novels in turn. Pelzer shows how Segal's novels explore the parent-child relationship, the price of success, the importance of love, marriage, and human...
From "Love Story" in 1970 to "Prizes," his most recent bestseller, Erich Segal has created a body of fiction that testifies to the importance of tr...
With the publication of her novel Annie John in 1985, Jamaica Kincaid entered the ranks of the best novelists of her generation. Her three autobiographical novels, Annie John, Lucy, and Autobiography of My Mother, and collection of short stories, At the Bottom of the River, touch on the universal theme of coming-of-age and the female adolescent's need to sever her ties to her mother. This angst is couched in the social landscape of post-colonial Antigua, a small Caribbean island whose legacy of racism affects Kincaid's protagonists. Her fiction rewrites...
With the publication of her novel Annie John in 1985, Jamaica Kincaid entered the ranks of the best novelists of her generation. Her three a...
Isabel Allende garnered immediate attention and international acclaim with the 1982 publication of House of Spirits. Allende drew favorable comparisons to male Latin American writers who were dominating a boom movement that mixed political and magical themes. Yet her engaging epic became a bestseller based on its artistic merit, regardless of gender issues, and her ensuing output of fiction and nonfiction continued to establish her esteemed place in the literary ranks. This Critical Companion introduces readers to Allende's writings with accessible literary analysis of her...
Isabel Allende garnered immediate attention and international acclaim with the 1982 publication of House of Spirits. Allende drew favorable ...
Born to a tobacco farmer in rural North Carolina, Kaye Gibbons found her literary voice by speaking through the strong southern women who inhabit her novels. While concentrating on the places and people she knows well, Gibbons has managed to speak for people who struggle to find their own place, wherever they are, and her books have reached a worldwide audience. Whether for students assigned to read "Ellen Foster" or for lovers of literature, this companion--the first and only book-length study of its kind--provides insights and interpretations that will help readers enjoy and better...
Born to a tobacco farmer in rural North Carolina, Kaye Gibbons found her literary voice by speaking through the strong southern women who inhabit h...
Since the publication and cinematic success of 1992's "Along Came a Spider," James Patterson seems to have taken up permanent residence on the bestseller lists. In the ensuing decade, his hit detective novels, with memorable nursery rhyme titles like "Cat and Mouse," (1997) and "Pop Goes the Weasel "(1999), came in rapid-fire succession and generated similar popularity and praise. His "Alex Cross" series created one of the most recognizable detectives in literature, and one of the first urban African American detectives to appeal, on such a grand scale, to audiences of all demographics....
Since the publication and cinematic success of 1992's "Along Came a Spider," James Patterson seems to have taken up permanent residence on the best...
This volume explores the range of relationships among women writers, women detectives and women-centered mystery fiction, and women readers. Focusing on writers as diverse as Sara Paretsky, Joan Hess, Sarah Caudwell, P. D. James, Katherine V. Forrest, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Sue Grafton, D. R. Meredith, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Barbara Wilson, the authors analyze the development of detective fiction with a different agenda: the woman-authored woman detective. The eleven essays concentrate new attention on the trio of reader, writer, and text when all three are modified by the terms woman and...
This volume explores the range of relationships among women writers, women detectives and women-centered mystery fiction, and women readers. Focusing ...
The first collection to articulate the pedagogical strategies of using detective fiction to investigate the politics of difference. The volume examines the many ways in which diversity is posited by contemporary writers exploring distinctive American subcultures. The distinguishing characteristic of the book is its mix of essays focusing on teaching cultural diversity in the classroom and illustrating diversity through fiction to the general reader. Among the issues addressed are definitions of diversity; what constitutes ethnicity or race, especially in terms of multiple subjectivities;...
The first collection to articulate the pedagogical strategies of using detective fiction to investigate the politics of difference. The volume examine...
