English Literature Update 2012

Page 23

eighteenth-century literature

Daniel Defoe The Novels Nicholas Marsh, formerly Teacher of English, Francis Holland School, UK

This study takes a fresh and candid look at Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and Roxana. Part I uses carefully selected short extracts for close textual analysis, while Part II examines the historical and literary contexts and a sample of criticism. The volume is an ideal introductory guide for those who are studying Defoe’s work for the first time. Contents: General Editor’s Preface / A Note on Editions / Introduction / PART I: ANALYSING DEFOE’S NOVELS / Setting the Agenda / Conscience and Repentance / Society and Economics / Women and Patriarchy / Instability and the Outsider / Themes and Conclusions to Part I / PART II: THE CONTEXT AND THE CRITICS / Daniel Defoe’s Life and Works / The Place of Defoe’s Novels in English Literature / A Sample of Critical Views / Notes / Further Reading / Index June 2011 Hardback Paperback

264pp £50.00 £16.99

216x138mm 978-0-230-24319-4 978-0-230-24320-0

Analysing Texts Series Editor: Nicholas Marsh

The Rise of the Novel

Swift and Science

Nicholas Seager, Lecturer in English Literature, Keele University, UK

The Satire, Politics, and Theology of Natural Knowledge, 1690-1730

'A remarkably comprehensive, lucid, and wellorganized account...judicious and convincing.’ Shaun Regan, Queen’s University Belfast, UK This Guide explores the dominant methodologies, theories and debates surrounding the emergence of the novel during the eighteenth century. Covering key criticism on authors such as Defoe, Fielding, Richardson and Austen, the emphasis is on how critical work is interrelated, allowing readers to discern trends in the critical conversation. Contents: Introduction / Eighteenth- and NineteenthCentury Accounts of the Rise of the Novel / New Criticism to the Rise of the Novel, 1924-1957 / Restructuring the Rise of the Novel, 1958-1985 / Cultural History and the Rise of the Novel, 1980-1989 / Feminism and the Rise of the Novel / Postcolonialism, Postnationalism and the Rise of the Novel / Rethinking the Rise of the Novel, 1990-2000 / Print Culture and the Rise of the Novel, 1990-2010 / Thematic Criticism of the Rise of the Novel 1: Family, Law, Sex and Society / Thematic Criticism of the Rise of the Novel 2: Politics, Medicine, Politics and Things / Conclusion / Notes / Bibliography / Index September 2012 200pp Hardback £47.50 Paperback £15.99

216x138mm 978-0-230-25182-3 978-0-230-25183-0

Gregory Lynall, Lecturer, School of English, University of Liverpool, UK

It is thought that Swift was opposed to the new science that heralded the beginning of the modern age, but this book interrogates that assumption, tracing the theological, political, and socio-cultural resonances of scientific knowledge in the early eighteenth century, and considering what they can reveal about Swift’s imagination. Contents: List of Illustrations / Acknowledgements / List of Abbreviations / Introduction: Altitudes of Authority / Meditations and Mechanisms: Swift and Robert Boyle’s Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects / Sinking the ‘Spider’s Cittadel’: The Battel of the Books and Thomas Burnet’s ‘Philosophical Romance’ of the Earth / Newtonian Battels with Rising Stars and Wheeling Moons / Laputian Newtons: Science, the Wood’s Halfpence Affair and Gulliver’s Travels / Socinians and Queens: Samuel Clarke and ‘Directions for a Birthday Song’ / Afterword / Notes / Bibliography / Index April 2012 Hardback

224pp £50.00

216x138mm 978-0-230-34364-1

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=531695

Readers’ Guides to Essential Criticism Series Editor: Nicolas Tredell http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=399996

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=382701

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