Available for the first time in the United States a new series of innovative critical studies introducing writers and their contexts to a wide range of readers. Drawing upon the mast recent thinking in English studies, each book considers biographical material, examines recent criticism, includes a detailed bibliography, and offers a concise but challenging reappraisal of a writer's major work. Published in the U. K. by Northcote House in association with The British Council.

Professor Cedric Watts discusses 25 puzzles presented by the works of Shakespeare. For instance: The Sonnets - autobiographical or fictional? What is the plot of the long-lost Love's Labour's Won? What are the 'glass eyes' in King Lear? Prospero's epilogue: it is really Shakespeare's farewell? Repeatedly, these challenging discussions reveal and resolve problematic features of the works, and demonstrate the linkage of minor and major concerns. Cedric Watts, Emeritus Professor of English at Sussex University, was co-author (with John Sutherland) of the acclaimed book, Henry V: War Criminal?...

'Janiform Novels' and Other Literary Essays gathers 25 essays by Cedric Watts, MA, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English at Sussex University. Previously published in a diversity of magazines and books, these conveniently-gathered literary discussions deal with such authors as Sophocles, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Milton, Defoe, Richardson, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Conrad, Hemingway, Graham Greene, William Golding, Samuel Beckett and Chinua Achebe. Topics include covert plotting, the conceit of the conceit, the fallacies of structuralist and post-structuralist literary theory,...