Brian W. Shaffer is Professor of English and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for Faculty Development at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the author of The Blinding Torch: Modern British Fiction and the Discourse of Civilization (1993) and Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro (1998). He is also the co-editor with Hunt Hawkins of Approaches to Teaching Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and “The Secret Sharer” (2002).

"Esseintally two books in one, this is both a useful reference guide and a detailed introduction tot he postwar British novel." Recommended."Choice

• Notes on Contributors ixPreface xviAcknowledgments xxPART I Contexts for the British and Irish Novel, 1945–2000 11 The Literary Response to the Second World War 3Damon Marcel DeCoste2 The ‘‘Angry’’ Decade and After 21Dale Salwak3 English Dystopian Satire in Context 32M. Keith Booker4 The Feminist Novel in the Wake of Virginia Woolf 45Roberta Rubenstein5 Postmodern Fiction and the Rise of Critical Theory 65Patricia Waugh6 The Novel and the End of Empire 83Reed Way Dasenbrock7 Postcolonial Novels and Theories 96Feroza Jussawalla8 Fictions of Belonging: National Identity and the Novel in Ireland and Scotland 112Gerard Carruthers9 Black British Interventions 128John Skinner10 The Recuperation of History in British and Irish Fiction 144Margaret Scanlan11 The Literary Prize Phenomenon in Context 160James F. English12 Novelistic Production and the Publishing Industry in Britain and Ireland 177Claire Squires13 The Novel and the Rise of Film and Video: Adaptation and British Cinema 194Brian McFarlane14 The English Heritage Industry and Other Trends in the Novel at the Millennium 210Peter ChildsPART II Reading Individual Texts and Authors 22515 Samuel Beckett’s Watt 227S. E. Gontarski and Chris Ackerley16 George Orwell’s Dystopias: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four 241Erika Gottlieb17 Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Other Late Novels 254Bernard Schweizer18 Modernism’s Swansong: Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano 266Patrick A. McCarthy19 The Heart of the Matter and the Later Novels of Graham Greene 278Cedric Watts20 William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Other Early Novels 289Kevin McCarron21 Amis, Father and Son 302Merritt Moseley22 Dame Iris Murdoch 314Margaret Moan Rowe23 Academic Satire: The Campus Novel in Context 326Kenneth Womack24 Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet 340Julius Rowan Raper25 The Oxford Fantasists: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien 354Peter J. Schakel26 Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 367Bryan Cheyette27 Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook 376Judith Kegan Gardiner28 Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea 388John J. Su29 John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman 398James Acheson30 Angela Carter 409Nicola Pitchford31 Margaret Drabble 421Margaret Moan Rowe32 V. S. Naipaul 432Timothy Weiss33 Salman Rushdie 444Nico Israel34 The Irish Novel after Joyce 457Donna Potts35 Anita Brookner 469Cheryl Alexander Malcolm36 Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot 481Merritt Moseley37 Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day 493Cynthia F. Wong38 Ian McEwan 504Rebecca L. Walkowitz39 Graham Swift 515Donald P. Kaczvinsky40 The Scottish New Wave 526David Goldie41 A. S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance 538Lynn Wells42 Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy 550Anne WhiteheadIndex 561