Andrew Hook – författare

The Fair Maid of Perth centres on the merchant classes of Perth in the fourteenth century, and their commitment to the pacific values of trade, in a bloody and brutal era in which no right to life is recognised, and in which the Scottish nobles fight for control of the weak Scottish monarchy, and clans are prepared to extinguish each other to gain supremacy in the central Highlands. It is a remarkable novel, in part because late in his career Scott has a new subject, and in part because he employs a spare narrative style that is without parallel in the rest of his oeuvre. Far too many critics, from his son-in-law J.G. Lockhart to the present day, have written off late Scott, and seen his last works as evidence of failing powers. The readers of this edition of The Fair Maid of Perth will see that these critics are mistaken, for in it we witness a luminous creative intelligence working at high pressure to produce a tightly organised and deeply moving novel.

First published between 1982 and 1983, this series examines the peculiarly American cultural context out of which the nation’s literature has developed. Covering the years from 1865 to 1900, this third volume of American Literature in Context focuses on the struggles of American writers to make sense of their rapidly changing world. In addition to such major figures as Walt Whitman, Henry James, Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain, it analyses the writings of an unorthodox economist (Henry George), a Utopian reformer (Edward Bellamy) and a critical sociologist (Thorstein Veblen). Particular attention is paid to the challenge to conventional literary and cultural values represented by writers such as William Dean Howell who pursued a new form of scientific, democratic realism in American writing.This book will be of interest to those studying American literature and American studies.

First published between 1982 and 1983, this series examines the peculiarly American cultural context out of which the nation’s literature has developed. Covering the years from 1865 to 1900, this third volume of American Literature in Context focuses on the struggles of American writers to make sense of their rapidly changing world. In addition to such major figures as Walt Whitman, Henry James, Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain, it analyses the writings of an unorthodox economist (Henry George), a Utopian reformer (Edward Bellamy) and a critical sociologist (Thorstein Veblen). Particular attention is paid to the challenge to conventional literary and cultural values represented by writers such as William Dean Howell who pursued a new form of scientific, democratic realism in American writing.This book will be of interest to those studying American literature and American studies.

Shortlisted for Best Collection in the British Fantasy Awards 2023Candescent Blooms is a collection of twelve short stories which form fictionalised biographies of mostly Golden Era Hollywood actors who suffered untimely deaths. From Olive Thomas in 1920 through to Grace Kelly in 1982, these pieces utilise facts, fiction, gossip, movies and unreliable memories to examine the life of each individual character set against a Hollywood background of hope and corruption, opportunity and reality.

The Glasgow Enlightenment is widely regarded as the first book to explore the nature and accomplishments of the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Glasgow in a comprehensive manner. In addition to a general introduction by the editors, there are seven chapters devoted to Glasgow University professors, such as Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, John Millar, William Leechman, and John Anderson. At a time when the Glasgow economy was booming in the strength of its trade with America, these and other Glasgow men of science and learning were making major contributions to the European world of philosophy, law, political economy, natural philosophy, medicine, and religious toleration. There are also five chapters on other individuals and topics, including the physician and author John Moore, James Boswell during his student days, images of Glasgow in popular poetry, and Popular party clergymen who challenged the dominant views of the academic Enlightenment with an alternative vision of liberty and piety.This edition features a new bibliographical preface by Richard B. Sher that discusses the substantial secondary literature on eighteenth-century Glasgow and the Glasgow Enlightenment since the original publication of this book more than a quarter of a century ago.