'In his 1935 study, Some Versions of Pastoral, rather than presenting a genre rooted in escapism, fantasy or paradise, William Empson described the pragmatic, instrumental value of pastoral, its way of ‘putting the complex into the simple’. But he also radically demonstrated, in examining such seemingly disparate texts as Troilus and Cressida and Paradise Lost,… Read More »
By 1949 Graham Greene was an internationally renowned writer. The Heart of the Matter had sold over 300,000 copies in its first three years of publication. The iconic The Third Man was about to hit the big screen. The same year, no doubt aware that his literary legacy should be chronicled, the author gave permission… Read More »
Is poetry rational? Is poetry reasonable? Is rhyme rational? Is rhyme reasonable? Does reason rhyme? Is rhyme a kind of non-reason, or nonsense? It is readily accepted among today’s cultural elite that modern poetry doesn’t have to rhyme – as if it is an unreasonable demand to be so reasonably rhyming in an age where,… Read More »
The last Contemporary Fiction Research Seminar of the summer semester at the Institute of Education – University of London, will take place on Saturday June 30 in room 261, on the second floor of Senate House from 2-4 pm. The session is a special seminar to launch the publication of the anthology Alan Moore and the Gothic… Read More »
The search for UK and Ireland's BIGGEST Harry Potter fan begins! Fifteen years ago today, on 26th June 1997, Bloomsbury published a book about a boy wizard on Bloomsbury's newly launched Children's list called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. From an idea born on a train journey, to its creation in a small cafe… Read More »
Samuel Beckett's German Diaries 1936 – 1937 by Mark Nixon is one of our flagship Beckett publications, launching the publication of our Historicizing Modernism series last year. I am delighted to report that it has had a rave review in the Times Literary Supplement. Normally at this point I would quote a line or 2, but… Read More »
Described as the 'Richard Dawkins of Literary Criticism' by Christopher Douglas (Associate Professor of English, University of Victoria), Michael Lackey is the author of our fascinating new book The Modernist God State in which he looks at the religious basis of modernist political movements. In this interview he reveals his experience of studying Nazi texts… Read More »
David Tucker is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex and currently teaches at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the editor of British Social Realism in the Arts since 1940 (Palgrave, 2011) and author of the latest book in our Historicizing Modernism series – Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing 'a… Read More »
Congratulations to Madeline Miller and all our Bloomsbury colleagues for their success at the Orange Prize 2012 last night! Madeline won the coveted prize for her fantastic debut novel The Song of Achilles – a gripping and touching love story between exiled princeling Patroclus and Achilles, strong, beautiful and the son of a goddess. The… Read More »
We are delighted to bring you news of an exciting evening of readings and writing about South Oxhey featuring our author John Schad alongside Michael Crowley (poet), David Reidy (historian) and others. The event takes place on Saturday 2 June at 7.30 pm at Watford Palace Theatre and, here's the best bit, is free and… Read More »