Experiences of twentieth century history and major literary trends are reflected in the excellent but little-known writings of the Austrian-Czech physician and novelist Ernst Weiss (1882-1940). Weiss was born in Moravia and studied medicine, in Vienna and Prague. One of many of Jewish exile writers who fled the Nazi regime, Weiss committed suicide in Paris when German troops entered the city in the summer of 1940. Weiss wrote one of the few novels about Adolf Hitler during the Fuehrer’s life.

Mary Elizabeth Hawker (1848-1908), who wrote from 1890 onwards under the
pseudonym of Lanoe Falconer, is remembered today primarily as the author of
two best-selling novellas (Mademoiselle Ixe and Cecilia de Noël), five brilliant
short stories (published under the title Hôtel d’Angleterre) and a slim volume
of wonderful reminiscences entitled Old Hampshire Vignettes. All of these will
be found in Collected Tales—but they are reinforced by eight additional short
stories, one additional novella (Shoulder to Shoulder) and one additional vignette.

This research monograph is an important contribution to the study of the author, Kurt Vonnegut and the great evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin. The book examines Darwin’s influence on the American culture that were Vonnegut's major focus and interest and the source of his importance as a major American writer of the later half of the 20th century.

Two major Dickens studies, each of them breaking fresh ground, vie for attention in this absorbing volume. The first explores the extent to which Charles Dickens inherited the mantle of Charles Lamb. It demonstrates how heavily, as a ‘hunter’, he drew upon his predecessor’s work for inspiration, adopting Elia’s themes and mannerisms and virtually taking his place on the English literary scene — even to the extent of inheriting John Forster as his closest friend and confidant.

“Speaking from the Margins: The Voice of the ‘Other’ in the Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay” studies Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay as poets who identify and represent some key forms of “otherness” may take in the British society of the 1980s and the 1990s.

Richard Wright died 50 years ago and in that time there has been little research on the role of women in his powerful novels of African-American life in America. This research monograph fulfills that informational and interpretative need.

This is an intriguing and groundbreaking study by a scholar who not only is not British nor Indian but belongs to a society that has had its own imperial history as well as having a strong ,revitalizing nationalist movement in the 20th c. It is through this prism that Dr Kapakli discusses,compares and contrasts Indian nationalism in three seminal novels. The novels in question are Shadow of the Moon (1957)by Mary Margaret Kaye, the Siege of Knishnapur(1973) by James Gordon Smith and White Teeth (2000)by Zadie Smith.

This work is a major contribution to the study of cliches and neologisms since it moves beyond considering them separately into their interlinked role in written,spoken and visual cultures in contemporary Britain, France and the United States.

The late Ted Hughes felt that healing was the most fundamental characteristic of all poetry yet until now there has been no monograph on Hughes conception of poetry as a healing device. This study discuss and interprets the healing quality in Hughes' poetic works and evaluates the poet's notion of its significance for human civilization.

“Pilar Villar-Argáiz’s sustained, meticulous, and exacting study of Eavan Boland opens up and articulates in a fresh way the key dimensions of her poetry. It succeeds not only in tracking the far-reaching ramifications of Eavan Boland’s politicized aesthetic as a postcolonial writer but in urging us to revisit the crystalline and precisely etched poems of one of the most significant artists in contemporary Irish culture.”
Professor Anne Fogarty, University College, Dublin (from the Introduction)