Adrian Barlow was formerly Director of Public & Professional Programmes and University Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Recently retired, he is now Chairman of the English Association and a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is series editor of Cambridge Contexts in Literature and his publications include The Great War in British Literature (CUP, 2000) and World and Time: Teaching Literature in Context (2009).

What impressed me most about these chapters is how accessible Adrian [Barlow] makes the discussion of literature particularly for those of us whose field is not literature. ... I found the book to be a very personal discussion about subjects and authors of great meaning to the author and they then became of great interest to me as a reader. ... As I did to my colleagues at UPCEA, I strongly recommend Extramural to those who advocate for lifelong learning. My only regret having read the book is that I've never attended any of Adrian's day or evening extramural lectures and walk with him as described the chalk-pit near Adrian's much loved Madingley Hall.

• IntroductionPart 11.1 By extension: a Cambridge perspective1.2 On course: lifelong learning and literaturePart 22.1 Tom Paine's plain words2.2 Trollope and religious controversy2.3 The word is said: re-reading John Drinkwater2.4 Literature now2.5 Alan Bennett and The Habit of Art2.6 'Mistaking Magdalen for the Menin Gate': Edmund Blunden's Halfway House2.7 From stage to page: the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Cambridge English2.8 Punting from the Cambridge end: The Great LoverPart 33.1 About Madingley3.2 On lit. crit. and teaching literature3.3 Concerning E.M. Forster3.4 On writers, mostly novelistsAcknowledgementsIndex

Adrian Barlow was formerly Director of Public & Professional Programmes and University Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Recently retired, he is now Chairman of the English Association and a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is series editor of Cambridge Contexts in Literature and his publications include The Great War in British Literature (CUP, 2000) and World and Time: Teaching Literature in Context (2009).

What impressed me most about these chapters is how accessible Adrian [Barlow] makes the discussion of literature particularly for those of us whose field is not literature. ... I found the book to be a very personal discussion about subjects and authors of great meaning to the author and they then became of great interest to me as a reader. ... As I did to my colleagues at UPCEA, I strongly recommend Extramural to those who advocate for lifelong learning. My only regret having read the book is that I've never attended any of Adrian's day or evening extramural lectures and walk with him as described the chalk-pit near Adrian's much loved Madingley Hall.

• IntroductionPart 11.1 By extension: a Cambridge perspective1.2 On course: lifelong learning and literaturePart 22.1 Tom Paine's plain words2.2 Trollope and religious controversy2.3 The word is said: re-reading John Drinkwater2.4 Literature now2.5 Alan Bennett and The Habit of Art2.6 'Mistaking Magdalen for the Menin Gate': Edmund Blunden's Halfway House2.7 From stage to page: the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Cambridge English2.8 Punting from the Cambridge end: The Great LoverPart 33.1 About Madingley3.2 On lit. crit. and teaching literature3.3 Concerning E.M. Forster3.4 On writers, mostly novelistsAcknowledgementsIndex