Cynicism is usually seen as a provocative mode of dissent from conventional moral thought, casting doubt on the motives that guide right conduct. When critics today complain that it is ubiquitous but lacks the serious bite of classical Cynicism, they express concern that it can now only be corrosively negative. The Function of Cynicism at the Present Time takes a more balanced view. Re-evaluating the role of cynicism in literature, cultural criticism, and philosophy from 1840 to t...

The Long Life invites the reader to range widely from the writings of Plato through to recent philosophical work by Derek Parfit, Bernard Williams, and others, and from Shakespeare's King Lear through works by Thomas Mann, Balzac, Dickens, Beckett, Stevie Smith, Philip Larkin, to more recent writing by Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and J. M. Coetzee. Helen Small argues that if we want to understand old age, we have to think more fundamentally about what it means to be a perso...

'All Hogglestock believed their parson to be innocent; but then all Hogglestock believed him to be mad.' Josiah Crawley lives with his family in the parish of Hogglestock, East Barsetshire, where he is perpetual curate. Impoverished like his parishioners, Crawley is hard-working and respected but he is an unhappy, disappointed man, ill-suited to cope when calamity strikes. He is accused of stealing a cheque to pay off his debts; too proud to defend himself, he risks ruin a...

'She liked lies...To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in a woman' Lizzie Eustace is young, beautiful, and widowed. Her determination to hold on to the Eustace family's diamond necklace in the face of legal harassment by her brother-in-law's solicitor entangles her in a series of crimes - apparent and real - and contrived love-affairs. Her cousin Frank, Tory MP and struggling barriste...

The Lifted Veil (1859) is now one of the most widely read and critically discussed of Eliot's works. - ;`She had believed that my wild poet's passion for her would make me her slave; and that, being her slave, I should execute her will in all things.' The Lifted Veil was first published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1859. A dark fantasy woven from contemporary scientific interest in the physiology of the brain, mesmerism, phrenology and experiments in revification it is Eliot's anatomy of her...

`She had believed that my wild poet's passion for her would make me her slave; and that, being her slave, I should execute her will in all things.' The Lifted Veil was first published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1859. A dark fantasy woven from contemporary scientific interest in the physiology of the brain, mesmerism, phrenology and experiments in revification it is Eliot's anatomy of her own moral philsophy - the ideal of imaginative sympathy or the ability to see...

'In Little Dorrit, Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached' George OrwellA masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens's maturity. It follows Arthur Clennam who, returning to England after many years abroad, takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother's seamstress, who was born and raised in the Marshalsea where her father has long been...

The central focus of this book is the experience of growing old as represented in literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day: an experience shaped by changes in longevity, a new science of senescence, the availability of state pensions, and other phenomena of recent history. The collection considers the increasing prominence of stories of ageing, challenging the idea that old age is an uneventful time outside of the parameters of literary narrative. Instead, age increasi...

The Small House at Allington concerns Lily Dale and her sister Bell.With Lily Dale, Trollope created one of his most formidable characters. Somewhat reminiscent of Jane Austen’s women, Lily lives with her widowed mother and sister Bell in the “Small House” on her uncle’s estate.As with all of Trollope, it is beautifully written and draws the reader into its many interwoven tales.A witty and incisive look at love, money, and marriage, this 1864 novel is the ...

The Duke's Children is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in 1879 as a serial in All the Year Round. It is the sixth and final novel of the Palliser series. Lady Glencora, the wife of Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, dies unexpectedly, leaving the Duke to deal with their grownup children, with whom he has a somewhat distant relationship. As the government in which he is Prime Minister has also fallen, the Duke is left bereft of both his beloved wife and his political pos...

Despite a declining popularity throughout his career, Anthony Trollope has become one of the most notable and respected English novelists of the Victorian Era. His penetrating novels on political, social and gender issues of his day have placed him among such nineteenth century literary icons as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. Trollope penned 47 novels in his career, in addition to various short stories, travel books, and biographies. First published in 1858, “Doctor Thorne...

Can You Forgive Her? Anthony Trollope - Can You Forgive Her? is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in serial form in 1864 and 1865. ... The novel follows three parallel stories of courtship and marriage and the decisions of three women: Alice Vavasor, her cousin Glencora Palliser, and her aunt Arabella Greenow.