Intriguing, updated portraits of classic fairy tale authors.

Translations of the forewords and afterwords by original fairy tale authors and commentaries by their contemporaries, material that has not been widely published in English.

Details the transformation of Tamil literary culture that came with colonialism and the encounter with Western modernity.

Recovers Walt Whitman as a self-conscious religious figure with an ethic based in male comradeship, one at odds with the temper of his times.

Presents a new genealogy and synoptic overview of modern Irish fiction.

Explores the philosophical dimensions present in the works of ancient Greek poets and playwrights.

Explores the metafictional strategies of contemporary African novels rather than characterizing them primarily as a response to colonialism.

Argues that Byron’s popularity marked the beginning of celebrity as a cultural identity.

Explores the development of the Chinese martial arts novel.

A lively and highly readable commentary on one of Plato’s most beloved dialogues.

Overturns traditional views of the origins of fairy tales and documents their actual origins and transmission.

The paradoxes of the American decadent movement in the 1890s and 1920s.

Examines Brecht's use of the theatre as a public arena for political change.

Explores how literati of China’s mid-Northern Song period developed a social and therapeutic tradition in poetry. Includes a number of translations of the witty poems of the period.

Exposes the cultural roots of Spanish fascism.

Explores European and American esoteric traditions as reflected in literature and in art.

Explores the cultural work of two important early-twentieth-century writers: the poet William Carlos Williams and the educator/philosopher John Dewey, both key figures in American democracy.

The first English edition and critical study of an anonymous thirteenth-century text about the disputations of a learned young woman with a series of wise men.

The fate of the hero-gambler, as described by Dostoevsky, Balzac, Poe, and others, is the focus of this unprecedented exploration of gambling and the human psyche.

James Joyce and Heraldry demonstrates that heraldry is an essential key to the symbols of Joyce's major works. It is a clear, witty introduction to heraldry and the use of heraldic imagery by Western ...

Old English prose before the late tenth century is examined in this collection of hitherto unpublished essays. Using a variety of techniques, the authors explore well-known and lesser-known texts in search ...