Twenty-First Century Perspectives on British Literature and Society
About the Book Series
Twenty-First Century Perspectives on British Literature and Society is home to cutting-edge research into transitions in British culture and society as seen through literary texts, including novels, plays, poetry and life writing. Exploring key works from the canon as well as lesser-known or historically marginalised voices, the books in this series tackle topics such as race, migration, gender, class and Brexit, looking at how major texts respond to and anticipate these contemporary issues. The series offers an insight into the multicultural landscape of Britain today and the ways in which it has transformed over the centuries.
The Transmission of Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Britain
1st Edition
By John Regan
November 21, 2025
This book reimagines the history of knowledge in 18th-century Britain by exploring how ideas were transmitted and diffused across generations and disciplines. Drawing on innovative digital tools, it uncovers collective patterns in the language of science, philosophy, and commerce, revealing how ...
Fictional Representations of (Un)ethical Journalistic Practices in Graham Greene’s Work: Burnt-Out Reporters
1st Edition
By Beatriz Valverde
December 13, 2024
British author Graham Greene pursued a professional career as a journalist before becoming a full-time writer. After that, he continued taking on reporting assignments as a correspondent for a variety of publications. Greene knew the profession inside out, and the role of the media in shaping the ...
Rewriting the North: Contemporary British Fiction and the Cultural Politics of Devolution
1st Edition
By Chloe Ashbridge
October 09, 2024
This book shows how twenty-first-century writing about Northern England imagines alternative democratic futures for the region and the English nation, signalling the growing awareness of England as a distinct and variegated political formation. In 2016, the Brexit vote intensified ongoing ...
Terry Pratchett Could Save the World
1st Edition
By Rebecca Ann Bach
October 09, 2024
This monograph contends that attending to Pratchett’s work could help to save our world. It draws attention to the astonishing capacity of Pratchett’s novels to inspire and argues that Pratchett’s fantasy novels directly address many of the most significant challenges people in the world face: the ...
Virtue Revisited in the Novels of Doris Lessing
1st Edition
By Seda ARIKAN
September 06, 2024
The ethical approaches to literature have come into prominence in the twentieth century, calling for a ‘turn to ethics’ in the studies of humanities, in general, and literary studies, in particular. By leading the ethical turn in literature, many theorists proposed a moral-oriented approach to ...
Reading Richard III and the Tower of London
1st Edition
By Kristen Deiter
September 05, 2024
This is the first book on Richard III and the Tower of London, shedding new light on the King’s reputation, the Castle’s lore, and early modern literature’s role in building associations between them. It is also one of the first books to integrate conceptual blending theory and spatial literary ...
The Donna Angelica and the British Enlightenment Poets: Six Studies from Butler to Crabbe
1st Edition
By A.D. Cousins
September 05, 2024
The aim of the book is to propose new interpretations of poets who are among the most valued and discussed in the British Enlightenment. In fulfilling its aim, the book covers English poetry—and intellectual history—from the Restoration to the later eighteenth century. It examines how the myth of ...
Ian McEwan: Subversive Readings, Informed Misreadings
1st Edition
By Irena Księżopolska
April 30, 2024
This book offers a discussion of seven “canonical” novels by Ian McEwan (The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, The Child in Time, The Innocent, Black Dogs, Atonement, On Chesil Beach), introducing radical new readings, which are offered not as ultimate and conclusive “solutions” of the ...