The first deep dive into the cultural afterlives of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, this book explores how the strange adventures of the 18th-century voyager have persisted over the past 300 years. Exploring sequels, spinoffs, elaborations and adaptations, among other things, Daniel Cook brings together an engaging account of how this literary classic has been reworked across different media throughout the world.Considerate of the major and unjustly n...

Placing Frankenstein in the critical frameworks of book history and secondary authorship, this book explores the increasing array of book-based reworkings of, and sequels to, the novel that up to this point, have been largely ignored. Covering novels, novellas and short stories across a range of genres from romance to YA fiction, Frankenstein Retold examines a broad range of these texts in different purviews and demonstrates their own critical value as we...

What defines a modern short story is much more than a question of length. Despite the efforts of early pioneers like Edgar Allan Poe, the genre was originally synonymous with the anecdote or tale and seen more as entertainment than art. However it has become far more than that, and this Very Short Introduction considers afresh the form's ongoing innovations in plot construction, capacity for psychological insight, and ability to offer intensely concentrated perceptions. This book ...

The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein consists of sixteen original essays on Mary Shelley's novel by leading scholars, providing an invaluable introduction to Frankenstein and its various critical contexts. Theoretically informed but accessibly written, this volume relates Frankenstein to various social, literary, scientific and historical contexts, and outlines how critical theories such as ecocriticism, posthumanism, and queer theory generate new and important discussion in illuminatin...

The graphic novel is the most exciting literary format to emerge in the past thirty years. Among its more inspired uses has been the superlative adaptation of literary classics. Unlike the comic book abridgments aimed at young readers of an earlier era, today's graphic novel adaptations are created for an adult audience, and capture the subtleties of sophisticated written works. This first ever collection of essays focusing on graphic novel adaptations of various literary classics demonstr...

This two-volume set offers comprehensive coverage of horror literature that spans its deep history, dominant themes, significant works, and major authors, such as Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Anne Rice, as well as lesser-known horror writers.Many of today's horror story fans—who appreciate horror through movies, television, video games, graphic novels, and other forms—probably don't realize that horror literature is not only one of the most popular types of l...

Popular commercial fiction emerged in the nineteenth century, with serialised novels and sensational penny dreadfuls. Today it remains a multi-million dollar industry giving pleasure to many, but it is also a field of growing interest for scholars and students of literature. This Companion covers the major developments in the history of popular fiction, with specially commissioned chapters on pulp fiction, bestsellers, and comics and graphic narratives. The volume also examines the public ...

"The ultimate literary bucket list. . . . 948 pages later, you still want more!" —The Washington PostCelebrate the thrill of discovering new titles in an extraordinary book that's as compulsively readable, entertaining, surprising, and enlightening as the one,zero-plus titles it recommends.Covering fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children's books, history, and more, one,zero Books to Read Bef...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Four o'clock in the morning, and the lights are on and still there's no way we're going to sleep, not after the film we just saw. The book we just read. Fear is one of the most primal human emotions, and one of the hardest to reason with and dispel. So why do we scare ourselves? It seems almost mad that we would frighten ourselves for fun, and yet there are thousands of books, films, games, and other forms of entertain...

Completely revised and updated to include the most up-to-date selections, this is a bold and bright reference book to the novels and the writers that have excited the world's imagination. This authoritative selection of novels, reviewed by an international team of writers, critics, academics, and journalists, provides a new take on world classics and a reliable guide to what's hot in contemporary fiction. Featuring more than 700 illustrations and photographs, presenting quotes from individ...

Horror cinema is a hugely successful, but at the same time culturally illicit genre that spans the history of cinema. It continues to flourish with recent cycles of supernatural horror and torture porn that span the full range of horror styles and aesthetics. It is enjoyed by audiences everywhere, but also seen as a malign influence by others.In this Routledge Film Guidebook, audience researcher and film scholar Brigid Cherry provides a comprehensive overview of the horror film and...

"A delectably sophisticated inquiry into why reading is a constant source of pleasure and provocation." — Booklist"Reading Why I Read delivers all the pleasure of discussing one's favorite books with a marvelously articulate, intelligent, opinionated friend. It's like joining the book club of your dreams." —Francine Prose"Wendy Lesser's extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America's most ...