This research monograph is an analysis of the English girls’ school-story, not mainly as an aspect of children’s literature, but as a genre which, despite the conservatism of the surface text, deeply challenges and subverts traditional societal constructs and provides images of liberation and self creation for girls and women. The work examines the alternative life-views, role–models and “possibilities of becoming” offered by the texts.

Lanoe Falconer ( nom de plume of Mary Elizabeth Hawker) was one of England’s most accomplished young writers in the 1890s; her novel Mademoiselle Ixe a bestseller and an international hit. Her short stories and novels were compared favorably to Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell among others. Her promising career was cut short by chronic illness. Peter Rowland began his research by discovering a large mass of Falconer’s unpublished material including personal documents.

This monograph based on original research and interpretation extends and enlightens our understanding of one of the seminal moments of 20th c British theatre—the rise of the verse drama and the re invigoration of Christian belief based on historical figures on England’s past. The study places Christopher Fry back in the literary canon and argues for his centrality—albeit a brief one—in dramatic history. Fry’s life and works are discussed ; a careful reading of the major and minor works is included.

These sixteen essays on modern Irish prose, poems and plays  have been developed from papers delivered at the conference of the International Association for the Study of  Irish Literatures, held at Bath Spa University College. Beyond Borders offers an international perspective by bringing together  voices from different national cultures and scholarly contexts.

After discussing the structuralism, post structuralism, Marxist, queer and feminist theories of dramatic action and dramaturgical development, the author posits an ontological (and refreshing) vision of Shakesprean stagecraft and dramatic movement. Shakespeare as an actor and Roman Catholic is an outsider in an early modern Protestant state in the process of dynamic cultural, economic reform and political repression. These themes are reflected in the unsettled, morally ambiguous characterizations that Professor Crosman studies: Hamlet, Polonius, Macbeth, Henry V and Falstaff among others.