Backgrounds in Shakespeare Set comprises three volumes.
An engaging illustrated overview Culture and Society in Shakespeare's Day gives valuable historical context to Shakespeare's works explaining what daily life was like in the country in the city and among the nobility since all of these settings feature prominently in his plays. Major events from the time period including the exploration of the New World and the clashes between the British Navy and the Spanish Armada add important perspective for students studying Shakespeare and his varied works.
Literature and the Theater in...

This Reader's Guide provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the key critical literature surrounding Philip Larkin's poetry. Robert C. Evans charts the major developments in Larkin's career as a writer alongside the evolution of critical responses to his work.

Sarah Fyge Egerton (1668-1723) is an intriguing poet who wrote a great deal of poetry during a period when women poets were relatively rare. Her career also began at an astonishingly early age: she was barely fourteen years old when one of her poems was first printed in London. Throughout much of her life Egerton used poetry to share her thoughts, vent her feelings, and participate, to a highly unusual degree, in the public discourse of her times. The Female Advocate is perhaps her most famous single work. It was her very first publication and was printed three times in her own lifetime"in...