Margaret Reynolds – författare

In Vintage Living Texts teachers and students will find the essential guide to the works of Louis de Bernières. Vintage Living Texts is unique in that it offers an in-depth interview with Louis de Bernières, relating specifically to the texts under discussion.This guide will deal with de Bernières' themes, genre and narrative technique, and a close reading of the texts will be accompanied with likely exam questions, and contexts and comparisons - as well as providing a rich source of ideas for intelligent and inventive ways of approaching the novels.Also included in this guide are detailed reading plans for all four novels, questions for essays and discussion, contextual material, suggested texts for complimentary and comparative reading, extracts from reviews, a biography, a bibliography and a glossary of literary terms.

In Vintage Living Texts, teachers, students and any lover of literature will find the essential guide to the major works of Roddy Doyle. Also included is an exclusive in-depth interview with Roddy Doyle relating specifically to the novels under discussion. Roddy Doyle's themes, genre and narrative techniques are put under scrutiny and the emphasis is on providing a rich source of ideas for intelligent and inventive ways of approaching the novels. Amongst many other features you'll find inspirational reading plans and contextual material, suggested complementary and comparative reading and an indispensable glossary. Featuring the texts: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, The Van and A Star Called Henry.

Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire’s son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur’s seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris. A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.

The text is accompanied by both explanatory annotations and textual notes."Backgrounds and Contexts" includes thirty letters or letter excerpts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning that trace Aurora Leigh’s inception, evolution, and publication.Seven contemporary documents—on the "woman question," prostitution, socialism, and poetic theory—place the text historically."Criticism" collects twenty-five assessments of Aurora Leigh from the period 1899–1993.A wide range of opinion is provided by George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Angela Leighton, Deirdre David, Dorothy Mermin, and Margaret Reynolds, among others.A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

'A remarkable book...wise and arresting' Sarah Winman'Exquisite... a deeply insightful memoir which charts our fundamental longings for place and identity, and ultimately our yearnings for love.' Helena KennedySingle, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, a realisation comes to Peggy quietly, and clearly: she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny intense. There are questions about past lives, about capability and expectations.Asking big questions about identity and belonging, as well as about what makes a mother - and a home - this is a beautiful meditation on how the legacies of childhood might be overcome by a mother's determination to love.'Extremely moving...an unusually thoughtful take on becoming a mother, enabled by removing babyhood and biology.' Guardian