This volume contains the key pieces of criticism on London's major works arranged chronologically to reconstruct the literary debate on London's work from earliest reviews to recent analyses. The essays contained here show how the perception of London's ideas and concerns have evolved throughout the 20th century to reflect the changes in American ethos itself.
Jack London continues to be one of America's most popular writers. While most critics have ignored him or underestimated his contribution to American letters for that reason, this anthology shows that some of the best...
This volume contains the key pieces of criticism on London's major works arranged chronologically to reconstruct the literary debate on London's wo...
As author of "Red Harvest," "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man," and other works, "Dashiell Hammett" is one of the most popular American writers of detective fiction. The critical response to his work has been diverse. Edmund Wilson saw little merit in his novels, while Raymond Chandler pointed to Hammett's originality and artistry. While some critics have considered it foolish to search for deeper meanings in his novels, many others have praised his writings as profound social and literary documents.
Spanning more than 60 years of critical response, this collection includes...
As author of "Red Harvest," "The Maltese Falcon," "The Thin Man," and other works, "Dashiell Hammett" is one of the most popular American writers o...
The appeal of Katherine Mansfield's work knows no geographical boundaries. All of her writings remain in print, she is widely read, taught, and anthologized throughout the world, and her work has been translated into diverse languages. The essays in this volume chart the response to Mansfield's work across time and place. Included are the earliest reviews of her writing from the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as pieces exemplifying modern critical approaches to her work.
Born in New Zealand in 1888, Katherine Mansfield left Wellington when she was nineteen to...
The appeal of Katherine Mansfield's work knows no geographical boundaries. All of her writings remain in print, she is widely read, taught, and ant...
Born in 1795, Thomas Carlyle was a preeminent figure in Victorian letters. Carlyle was widely reviewed, discussed, praised and criticized during his lifetime, because of his controversial ideas as well as his masterful biographies, histories and extended essays, all forms deemed more canonical in the nineteenth century. Although opinion about him and assessments of his work have fluctuated greatly in the years since his death in 1881, interest in his writings has seldom waned. This volume presents some of the most inaccessible and some of the best critical opinion dealing with four of...
Born in 1795, Thomas Carlyle was a preeminent figure in Victorian letters. Carlyle was widely reviewed, discussed, praised and criticized during hi...
When it was initially published in 1939, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" instantly became a bestseller. Like many phenomenally popular works, it has elicited a wide range of critical responses. Some earlier reviewers faulted Steinbeck for his apparent sentimentality, while others were disturbed by his portrait of heartless, greedy Americans. Others, too, criticized his aesthetics. His novel became an important part of the American curriculum, many readers praised his epic vision, and modern critics have tended to respond favorably to his works. But despite the publication of four...
When it was initially published in 1939, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" instantly became a bestseller. Like many phenomenally popular works...
As the author of "The Women of Brewster Place," "Linden Hills," "Mama Day," and "Bailey's Cafe," Gloria Naylor is widely respected as one of the most important contemporary African American women writers. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the critical response to her works. The book is divided into sections devoted to each of Naylor's novels. Within each section, seminal articles and book chapters comment on her writing. Special attention is given to African American and feminist perspectives on her canon. In addition, many of the essays discuss the relationship of Naylor's...
As the author of "The Women of Brewster Place," "Linden Hills," "Mama Day," and "Bailey's Cafe," Gloria Naylor is widely respected as one of the mo...
Author of such classics of 20th-century popular American literature as "Tobacco Road" (1932) and "God's Little Acre" (1933), Erskine Caldwell was something of a celebrity nearly all his life. But he was also a serious writer, one whose merits are as considerable as they remain underexplored. In the 1930s, he startled the literary world with his frank portrayals of the poor whites of the South. Beginning in the early 1940s, critics grew suspicious that he had exhausted his originality and his talent. In the late 1960s, some scholars began an effort, which continues intermittently today, to...
Author of such classics of 20th-century popular American literature as "Tobacco Road" (1932) and "God's Little Acre" (1933), Erskine Caldwell was s...
Best known for her diary, Anais Nin was also the author of several novels, short fiction, and a book on D.H. Lawrence. As a woman who made a career of her aesthetic femininity, her works helped shape the future of gender studies and feminist literary criticism. Her writings have challenged numerous critics, while her life has been equally fascinating. The selections in this book represent the critical response to her works, from her first efforts in the 1930s to the posthumous publication of unexpurgated diary volumes beginning in 1986, including the views of major biographers and...
Best known for her diary, Anais Nin was also the author of several novels, short fiction, and a book on D.H. Lawrence. As a woman who made a career...