Wiley Blackwell Critical Biographies – serie

Complete with fresh perspectives, and drawing on the latest scholarship and biographical sources, The Life of D. H. Lawrence spans the full range of his intellectual interests and creative output to offer new insights into Lawrence’s life, work, and legacy. Addresses his major works, but also lesser-known writings in different genres and his late paintings, in order to reassess the innovative, challenging, and subversive aspects of Lawrence’s personality and writingIncorporates newly-discovered sources, including correspondence, a manuscript written in 1923-4, new evidence for important influences on his major novels and two previously unpublished images of the authorEmphasizes Lawrence’s gregarious nature, his desire to collaborate with others, and his adaptability to different social situationsPays particular attention to the many interactions with literary advisors, editors, agents, publishers, and printers that were required for him to work as a professional writerCombines new material with astute commentary to provide a nuanced understanding of one of the most prolific and controversial authors of the twentieth century

By examining the family and financial circumstances of Wordsworth’s early years, this illuminating biography reshapes our understanding of the great Romantic poet’s most creative period of life and writing.   Features new research into Wordsworth’s financial situation, and into how the poet and his family survived financiallyOffers a new understanding of the role of his great unwritten poem ‘The Recluse’Presents a new assessment of the relationship between Wordsworth and Coleridge

The Life of Robert Frost presents a unique and rich approach to the poet that includes original genealogical research concerning Frost's ancestors, and a demonstration of how mental illness plagued the Frost family and heavily influenced Frost's poetry. A widely revealing biography of Frost that discusses his often perplexing journey from humble roots to poetic fame, revealing new details of Frost's lifeTakes a unique approach by giving attention to Frost's genealogy and the family history of mental illness, presenting a complete picture of Frost's complexityDiscusses the traumatic effect on Frost of his father's early death and the impact on his poetry and outlookPresents original information on the influence of his mother's Swedenborgian mysticism

Goethe established a major European reputation and profoundly influenced his contemporaries and literary successors, not least among them the British Romantic writers Coleridge, Scott, and Byron. Offers a comprehensive one-volume study of a major European literary figure.Deals in depth and detail with the totality of Goethe's output and activity.

This invaluable book not only assesses the life and work of one of Europe's most important and innovative writers, it also casts revealing light on crucial areas of French cultural, social, and political history.

Providing a close examination of Milton's wide-ranging prose and poetry at each stage of his life, Barbara Lewalski reveals a rather different Milton from that in earlier accounts. Provides a close analysis of each of Milton's prose and poetry works.Reveals how Milton was the first writer to self consciously construct himself as an 'author'.Focuses on the development of Milton's ideas and his art.

W. B. Yeats is widely regarded as the greatest English-language poet of the twentieth century. This new critical biography seeks to tell the story of his life as it unfolded in the various contexts in which Yeats worked as an artist and as public figure.

Rosemary Ashton explores the many facets of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's complex personality, by turns poet, critic, thinker, enchanting companion, feckless husband, fabled conversationalist and guilt-ridden opium addict.

Each chapter in this intriguing book by one of the world's leading authorities on Henry Fielding begins with an annotated chronology of the known facts, followed by analyses of the important issues. Paulson's account must be essential reading to all admirers and serious students of Fielding and his work.

The Life of Daniel Defoe examines the entire range of Defoe’s writing in the context of what is known about his life and opinions. Features extended and detailed commentaries on Defoe’s political, religious, moral, and economic journalism, as well as on all of his narrative fictions, including Robinson CrusoePlaces emphasis on Defoe’s distinctive style and rhetoricSituates his work within the precise historical circumstances of the eighteenth-century in which Defoe was an important and active participantNow available in paperback

Robert Browning is customarily regarded as a dramatic poet whose works are separate and distinct from himself. This biography proposes a different view of the poet and his poems. Every one of his works is regarded in the same way that Browning himself regarded it; as a performance in which the author plays a part, as producer, presenter, or actor, or sometimes all three; and each is examined as part of a constantly revised script entitled Presenting Robert Browning . To Browning life is more than art, but art is teh best way of dealing with what life is all about.

In this major reassessment, now available in paperback, Richard Gray uses and develops recent theories about the relationship between writing and historical experience, language and social change, to draw a brilliantly detailed portrait of the place and times Faulkner inhabited. Attending closely to each of the novels, Gray shows how they brim with an often undisclosed biography that is at once personal and cultural.

Rosemary Ashton explores the many facets of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's complex personality, by turns poet, critic, thinker, enchanting companion, feckless husband, fabled conversationalist and guilt-ridden opium addict.

The Life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of Shakespeare's life and works focusing on oftern neglected literary and historical contexts: what Shakespeare read, who he worked with as an author and an actor, and how these various collaborations may have affected his writing. Written by an eminent Shakespearean scholar and experienced theatre reviewerPays particular attention to Shakespeare's theatrical contemporaries and the ways in which they influenced his writingOffers an intriguing account of the life and work of the great poet-dramatist structured around the idea of memoryExplores often neglected literary and historical contexts that illuminate Shakespeare's life and works

Turner's strikingly original and penetrating account of Hardy's extraordinarily creative life and longevity offers a series of thirty-two chapters, each of which relates the biographical and literary background of a single work.

W. B. Yeats is widely regarded as the greatest English-language poet of the twentieth century. This new critical biography seeks to tell the story of his life as it unfolded in the various contexts in which Yeats worked as an artist and as public figure.

He has written a masterful biography, rich in enlivened critical detail, which more than any other study of Waugh to date, works to redress the bias against its subject that is so representative of Stannard's major two-volume account.

Goethe established a major European reputation and profoundly influenced his contemporaries and literary successors, not least among them the British Romantic writers Coleridge, Scott, and Byron. Offers a comprehensive one-volume study of a major European literary figure.Deals in depth and detail with the totality of Goethe's output and activity.

The Life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of Shakespeare's life and works focusing on oftern neglected literary and historical contexts: what Shakespeare read, who he worked with as an author and an actor, and how these various collaborations may have affected his writing. Written by an eminent Shakespearean scholar and experienced theatre reviewerPays particular attention to Shakespeare's theatrical contemporaries and the ways in which they influenced his writingOffers an intriguing account of the life and work of the great poet-dramatist structured around the idea of memoryExplores often neglected literary and historical contexts that illuminate Shakespeare's life and works

The life story of the Victorian novelist George Eliot is as dramatic and complex as her best plots. This new assessment of her life and work combines recent biographical research with penetrating literary criticism, resulting in revealing new interpretations of her literary work. A fresh look at George Eliot's captivating life storyIncludes original new analysis of her writingDeploys the latest biographical researchCombines literary criticism with biographical narrative to offer a rounded perspective

Presents a fresh account of the life history and creative imagination of Jonathan Swift Classic satires such as Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, and A Tale of a Tub express radical positions, yet were written by the most conservative of men. Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin and spent most of his life in Ireland, never traveling outside the British Isles. An Anglo-Irish Protestant clergyman, he was a major political and religious figure whose career was primarily clerical, not literary. Although much is known about Swift, in many ways he remains an enigma. He was admired as an Irish patriot yet was contemptuous of the Irish. He was both secretive and self-dramatizing. His talent for friendship was matched by his skill for making enemies. He hated the English but yearned to live in England. The Life of Jonathan Swift explores the writing life and personal history of the foremost satirist in the English language. Accessible and engaging, this critical biography brings Swift’s writing and creative sensibility into the narrative of his life. Author Thomas Lockwood provides the historical and modern critical context of Swift’s prose satires and poetry, as well as his political journalism, essays, manuscripts, and personal correspondence. Throughout the book, biographically contextualized descriptions of Swift’s most famous works help readers better understand both the writing and the writer. Provides critical profiles of Gulliver’s Travels, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, Drapier’s Letters, and Swift’s other famous worksOffers insights into Swift’s relationships with Esther Johnson, “Stella,” and Esther Vanhomrigh, “Vanessa”Highlights Swift’s poetry and how verse writing was a vital part of his creative beingSummarizes and contextualizes lesser-known works such as The Conduct of the AlliesAddresses the historic critical bias against comedy or satire as inferior forms of art, both in Swift’s lifetime and the presentThe Life of Jonathan Swift is an essential resource for general readers of literature and literary biography, university instructors and researchers, and undergraduate students taking courses in English literature.

The Life of Daniel Defoe examines the entire range of Defoe’s writing in the context of what is known about his life and opinions. Features extended and detailed commentaries on Defoe’s political, religious, moral, and economic journalism, as well as on all of his narrative fictions, including Robinson CrusoePlaces emphasis on Defoe’s distinctive style and rhetoricSituates his work within the precise historical circumstances of the eighteenth-century in which Defoe was an important and active participantNow available in paperback

The Life of Robert Frost presents a unique and rich approach to the poet that includes original genealogical research concerning Frost's ancestors, and a demonstration of how mental illness plagued the Frost family and heavily influenced Frost's poetry. A widely revealing biography of Frost that discusses his often perplexing journey from humble roots to poetic fame, revealing new details of Frost's lifeTakes a unique approach by giving attention to Frost's genealogy and the family history of mental illness, presenting a complete picture of Frost's complexityDiscusses the traumatic effect on Frost of his father's early death and the impact on his poetry and outlookPresents original information on the influence of his mother's Swedenborgian mysticism

Discover anew the life and influence of Henry James, part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Critical Biographies series.In The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography, Peter Collister, an established critic and authority on Henry James, offers an original and fully documented account of one of America’s finest writers, who was both a creative practitioner and theorist of the novel. In this volume, James’s life in all its personal and cultural richness is examined alongside a detailed scrutiny of his fiction, essays, biographies, autobiographies, travel writing, plays and reviews.  James was a dedicated and brilliant letter-writer and his biographer make judicious use of this material, some of it previously unpublished, evoking in the novelist’s own words the society within which he moved and worked. His gift for friendship, often resulting in close relationships with both men and women, are sensitively explored. Near the beginning of his long and highly productive life, James left America to immerse himself in European culture and history – a necessity, he felt, for the developing artist. In an ironic symmetry he witnessed in his youth the effects of the American Civil War and in his last days, finally becoming a British citizen, despaired at the unfolding tragedy of the Great War in Europe. Sustained, nevertheless, by his own creative energy, he never ceased to believe in the capacity of the arts to enhance and give significance to life.      Provides well-informed accounts of Henry James’s youth in New York City, his unconventional education, his extensive travel in Europe, his eventual assimilation into British society, his development as a writer and his personal relationships as a single man. Features discussions of James’s major works in a variety of genres from an assured theoretical and historical perspective.Assesses James’s developing quest for dramatic form in his fiction – the ‘scenic art’ – as well as his critical writing which was to have a lasting influence on the literature and aesthetic values of the twentieth century.Discusses his achieved aspiration to be ‘just literary’, to become what he called that ‘queer monster’, an artist.Charts James’s lifelong interest in art and theatre.An incisive discussion of the life of an author of major stature, The Life of Henry James: A Critical Biography offers a refreshingly lucid and human account of a novelist and his often challenging, but rewarding, writing. Peter Collister, a former college Assistant Principal, has published many essays in Europe and America on a range of nineteenth-century British and French authors. He is the author of Writing the Self: Henry James and America and later edited for the university presses of Cambridge and Virginia the award-winning volumes: The Complete Writings of Henry James on Art and Drama, James's autobiographical writings, A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, and The Middle Years, as well as The American Scene.

Providing a close examination of Milton's wide-ranging prose and poetry at each stage of his life, Barbara Lewalski reveals a rather different Milton from that in earlier accounts. Provides a close analysis of each of Milton's prose and poetry works.Reveals how Milton was the first writer to self consciously construct himself as an 'author'.Focuses on the development of Milton's ideas and his art.

In this major revision of The Life of Samuel Johnson, Robert DeMaria makes a compelling claim for the attention of a new generation of Johnson's readers and admirers.

This important new critical biography traces in carefully considered detail what is known of Geoffrey Chaucer's personal life while exploring the fascinating relationship between the man of affairs, who made so many 'improvisations and accommodations' to ensure his own survival, and the poet. A major reexamination of England's greatest narrative poet, it is supplemented with reproductions of Chaucer portraits and other illustrations, including maps of medieval England.

aeo A major account of Scotta s life and work which removes many layers of the myth. aeo Original contribution to our knowledge of Scotta s disastrous business affairs. aeo An accessible yet thorough account of a major cultural figure in the evolution of the novel.