Robert Giddings

Keith Selby

Chris Wensley

The book takes as its theme the relationship between literature and the contemporary means of production and distribution collectively termed 'the media' - in particular, film and television. The intention of the book is to explore and evaluate the mutual opportunities and restrictions in this relationship. In the grammar of our culture there seems to be an accepted opinion that print is superior in terms of cultural production to film, radio or television, that to read a book is somehow a 'higher' cultural activity than seeing a play on television or seeing a film. By the same token, a novel is a 'superior' work of art to film or television. The longer perspective reveals that traditionally there always is a greater respect paid to the previous mode of literary production - poetry was superior to drama, poetic drama was superior to the novel, and film attained cult and classic status initially over television.

The Theory And Practice Of Literary Dramatization

Screening The Novel

This book provides a clear method of study which encourages students to construct their own interpretation of any of Dicken's novels. It helps students to identify a novel's major thematic concerns and interests and to argue a case purely from the evidence of the text. But it also moves beyond a straighforwardly thematic analysis to consider how a novel is put together and how it works. This in turn provides students with a way of identifying the distinctiveness of Dickens's fiction and with a way of structuring an intelligent critical response to any of his novels.

How to Study a Charles Dickens Novel

The classic serial, invented by BBC Radio Drama sixty years ago, survived and adapted itself to television, the arrival of colour and the global market in what has become a flood of classics with all channels competing for ratings and overseas sales. This richly detailed book traces these developments and analyses the genre's response to social, economic, technical and cultural changes, which have re-shaped it into the form we recognise today. The book contains considerable interview material with performers and media professionals.

Keith Selby

Books

Your next favorite book is out there