How did Dante come to create his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, a work unrivaled by any of his other writings? In this book, a preeminent Dante scholar analyzes the only real biography of the poet that we have-his body of works-to illuminate this qu...

What sets Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" apart from so many other famous works of fiction? What special combination of creativity and vision made possible the drafting of "Magna Carta"? When describing exceptional accomplishments like these – and the...

Poet John Hollander surveys the schemes, patterns and forms of English verse in this classic text, illustrating each variation with an original and witty self-descriptive example. In new essays for this fourth edition, J. D. McClatchy and Richard Wil...

Man of letters, political critic, public intellectual, Irving Howe was one of America's most exemplary and embattled writers. Since his death in 1993 at age 72, Howe's work and his personal example of commitment to high principle, both literary and p...

The centrepiece of "Silent Highway" is the title-poem which celebrates the role of the river Thames in the life of London. It is written as a sequence that looks at history and the present: from Pocahontas's voyage to the arrival of the "Windrush" br...

"Nowhere / on these parchment leaves do I find / myself, my likeness, my name, / not a whisper – Cynthia – not one / breath of me". For thirty years poet Jana Harris researched the diaries and letters of North American pioneer women. While the nam...

In this unparalleled study of the forms of Hebrew poetry, preeminent authority Benjamin Harshav examines Hebrew verse during three millennia of changing historical and cultural contexts. He takes us around the world of the Jewish Diaspora, comparing...

In works of Western literature ranging from Homer's "Odyssey" to Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" The giving and taking of hospitality are sometimes pleasurable, but more often perilous. Heffernan traces this leitmotiv through the history of...

With pinpoint accuracy, virtuosity and humour, Caoilinn Hughes aligns scientific and poetic venturing. In this striking debut collection she focuses on moments of discovery, from the first controlled nuclear reaction to the shape of an avalanche as w...

From the moment of our first steps, our lives revolve around finding our way through the world. The paths we choose and the guides we trust can forever change our course. Mariner Holly J. Hughes has spent much of her life on the open sea, experiencin...