Richard Bradford

The classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.

A Novel

Red Sky at Morning

A portrait of the man behind the writings

A Man Of Our Time

Orwell

'My New Year's Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle - may they never give me peace' PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year's Eve, 1947) Made famous by the great success of her psychological thrillers, The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith is lauded as one of the most influential and celebrated modern writers. However, there has never been a clear picture of the woman behind the books. The relationship between Highsmith's lesbianism, her fraught personality – by parts self-destructive and malicious – and her fiction, has been largely avoided by biographers. She was openly homosexual and wrote the seminal lesbian love story, Carol. In modern times, she would be venerated as a radical exponent of the LGBT community. However, her status as an LGBT icon is undermined by the fact that she was excessively cruel and exploitative of her friends and lovers. In this new biography, Richard Bradford brings his sharp, incisive style to one of the great and most controversial writers of the twentieth century. He considers Highsmith's bestsellers in the context of her troubled personal life; her alcoholism, licentious sex life, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and abundant self-loathing.

The Life of Patricia Highsmith

Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The State of Theory

The Novel Now is an intelligent and engaging survey ofcontemporary British fiction. Discusses familiar names such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan,Salman Rushdie, and Angela Carter and compares them with morerecent authors, including David Mitchell, Ali Smith, A.L. Kennedy,Matt Thorne, Nicola Barker, and Toby Litt Incorporates original coverage of subgenres such as chick lit,lad lit, gay fiction, crime fiction, and the historical novel Discusses the ways in which notions of regional identity andtribalist views have surfaced in UK and Irish fiction, and howpost-Imperial sensibility has become a feature of the‘British’ novel Situates contemporary fiction within its socio-cultural andliterary contexts.

Contemporary British Fiction

The Novel Now

Including original contributions by, among others, Martin Amis, Alan Sillitoe, Ruth Fainlight and D.J. Taylor, this important collection examines the status and practice of literary biography and autobiographical writing, and reasserts the centrality of the relationship between authors' lives and their works.

Essays on Autobiography, Biography and Literature

Life Writing

One of the most enduringly popular and controversial writers of the twentieth century, George Orwell's work is as relevant today as it was in his own lifetime. Possibly, in the age of Brexit, Trump, and populism, even more so. 'Doublethink' features in Nineteen Eighty-Four and it is the forerunner to 'Fake News'. He foresaw the creation of the EU and more significantly he predicted that post-Imperial xenophobia would cause Britain to leave it. His struggle with his own antisemitism could serve as a lesson to today's Labour Party and while the Soviet Union is gone, China has taken its place as a totalitarian superpower. Aside from his importance as a political theorist and novelist, Orwell's life is fascinating in its own right. Caught between uncertainty and his family's upper middle-class complacency, Orwell grew to despise the class system that spawned him despite finding himself unable to fully detach himself from it. His life thereafter mirrored the history of his country; like many from his background he devoted himself to socialism as a salve to his conscience. In truth he reserved as much suspicion and distaste for the 'proles' as he did pity. He died at the point when Britain's status as an Imperial and world power had waned but his work remains both prescient and significant. Orwell: A Man of Our Time offers a vivid portrait of the man behind the writings, and places him and his work at the centre of the current political landscape.

The authorized biography of one of the great British post-war writers.Written with the close co-operation of Alan Sillitoe himself, The Life of a Long Distance Writer is not only the definitive work on the legendary writer in his 80th birthday year, it also promises to be perhaps the most controversial literary biography of the last decade. Alan Sillitoe has allowed Richard Bradford unrestriced access to his papers and personal archive, enabling Bradford to build the first comprehensive portrait of this brilliant and often contradictory figure. Within it, Bradford reveals—among other things—that Sillitoe, though proud of his background and Nottingham hometown, rejects the "working-class writer" tag that has been thrust on him, loathes political correctness in all its forms and has retained for a long time a somewhat unfashionable Zionism, strongly sympathetic to those who want to protect the Jewish homeland. As well as this, Bradford delves into Silltoe's literary and artistic liasions across mediums, perhaps most notably a long and close friendship with Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes.

The Biography of Allan Sillitoe

The Life of a Long-distance Writer

John Banville

Damien Hirst

Philip Larkin

Published to accompany Damien Hirst’s exhibition of butterfly paintings at Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles in February 2007, Superstition is a visually stunning book that confirms Hirst’s reputation as one of the most significant visual thinkers of his generation. Using ‘High Windows’, the last published volume of poems by Philip Larkin, as a point of reference to focus on the business of death and love, the ‘baroque and lavish fractals’ of Hirst’s paintings have a direct and clear poetry of their own, making Superstition a grand and tender body of work: ‘Larkin would probably have seen straight away the point of Hirst’s butterflies, these most evanescent of nature’s creatures, trapped here in their thousands under glass, their bright day done yet glowing still in death.’ Superstition includes over 30 exquisite full colour plates of the butterfly paintings, as well as reproductions of details and installation shots, providing a curatorial insight into this magnificent body of paintings. In addition to the wonderfully rich plates Superstition reproduces 6 of Philip Larkin’s poems, a commentary by Richard Bradford, and an erudite introduction by John Banville: ‘Death informs our every aspiration, our every hope, and stands at the end of every turn we take, the iron gate that will open just for us. As someone has said of the novel, having a happy ending depends on where you stop.’

Superstition

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR An expansive biography of John Milton, including an assessment of his poetry and prose and an account of the ways in which he has been presented over the past three and a half centuries—written by a leading scholar in the field It is hard to overstate the role that John Milton played in the historical, political and literary controversies of seventeenth century England; his writings and very life challenged the status quo. Living through one of the most tumultuous periods in British history, Milton was involved at every turn. Struggling to reconcile his private beliefs with his involvement with a radical political experiment, a republic which involved the killing of the monarch, his star rose and fell several times during his life. Married three times, struck blind at a cruelly early age, he was a famed pamphleteer and political activist whose revolutionary political credos placed him in mortal danger after the Restoration. Milton’s varied life makes for fascinating reading but it also produced some of the most important poetry in the English language. Paradise Lost, the only poem in English recognized as an epic, challenged conventional thinking on widespread topics from religion and gender equality to the fundamental question of why we behave as we do. This fascinating new biography is divided into two parts. The first separates the man from the myth, and elucidates the complicated details of Milton’s life from his early years as a literary artist uncertain of his destiny, through his work as a propagandist for the Cromwellian republic, to his rewriting of the Old Testament story of the Fall as a poetic allegory of more recent history. The second looks at how biographers and critics from the seventeenth century to the present day have distorted and manipulated the personality of Milton to suit their biases. Balancing accessibility with academic rigor, this volume: Examines the significant aspects of Milton’s life and work, including his poetry and prose, his government writings, his travels, and his final years Explores Milton’s Protestant and republican influences in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and his other literary works Highlights the differences and similarities between Milton’s poetry and political prose Follows the history of biographical and critical presentations of Milton from the seventeenth century onwards, including his adoption as a hero of Romanticism and his survival in the twentieth century as, allegedly, a sceptical humanist Addresses modern critiques of Milton in Marxism, Feminism, and other branches of Theory The Life of the Author: John Milton. Poet and Revolutionary is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, university lecturers, and academic researchers in relevant fields, particularly seventeenth century poetry and history, as well as literary biography and the history of criticism.

The Life of the Author: John Milton

Alison Baverstock

Madelena Gonzalez

Contemporary Publishing and the Culture of Books is a comprehensive resource that builds bridges between the traditional focus and methodologies of literary studies and the actualities of modern and contemporary literature, including the realities of professional writing, the conventions and practicalities of the publishing world, and its connections between literary publishing and other media. Focusing on the relationship between modern literature and the publishing industry, the volume enables students and academics to extend the text-based framework of modules on contemporary writing into detailed expositions of the culture and industry which bring these texts into existence; it brings economic considerations into line alongside creative issues, and examines how employing marketing strategies are utilized to promote and sell books. Sections cover: The standard university-course specifications of contemporary writing, offering an extensive picture of the social, economic, and cultural contexts of these literary genres The impact and status of non-literary writing, and how this compares with certain literary genres as an index to contemporary culture and a reflection of the state of the publishing industry The practicalities and conventions of the publishing industry Contextual aspects of literary culture and the book industry, visiting the broader spheres of publishing, promotion, bookselling, and literary culture Carefully linked chapters allow readers to tie key elements of the publishing industry to the particular demands and features of contemporary literary genres and writing, offering a detailed guide to the ways in which the three core areas of culture, economics, and pragmatics intersect in the world of publishing. Further to being a valuable resource for those studying English or Creative Writing, the volume is a key text for degrees in which Publishing is a component, and is relevant to those aspects of Media Studies that look at interactions between the media and literature/publishing.

Contemporary Publishing and the Culture of Books

Gavriel Reisner

Gavriel Ben-Ephraim

Posits a causal relationship between two themes in Lawrence's fiction usually thought to be unrelated: the dominance of women and the conflict between the tale and the teller. The connection is revealed in the course of a systematic analysis of the tale-teller division in Lawrence's earlier novels.

Narrative Dichotomy and Female Dominance in Lawrence's Earlier Novels

The Moon's Dominion

This volume is part of a series of comprehensive, user-friendly introductions which offer basic information on an author's life, contexts and works.

The Complete Critical Guide to John Milton

Richard Bradford provides a definitive introductory guide to modern critical ideas on literary style and stylistics. It will provide students with a basic grasp of stylistics and literary analysis. This comprehensive and accessible guidebook for undergraduates examines: * the terminology of literary form * how literary style has evolved since the sixteenth century * the role of stylistics in twentieth century criticism * the discipline of stylistics from classical rhetoric to post-structuralism * the relationship between literary style and its historical context * style and gender * examples of poems, plays and novels from Shakespeare to the present day.

Stylistics

There is a crying need for an accessible, comprehensive guide to John Milton for the thousands of students who make their way through his poetry every year on literary survey and seventeenth century literature courses. Where many previous guides have dragged their way through Paradise Lost, Richard Bradford brings Milton to life with an overview of his life, contexts, work and the relationship between these, and of the main critical issues surrounding his work.

John Milton

Philip Larkin was a keen amateur photographer and through his life he made images of the people, places and things that meant most to him. Publishing ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of the poet's death in December 2015, The Importance of Elsewhere gathers the best of Larkin's photographic work, divided into short thematic chapters arranged in chronological order. Written by Richard Bradford, the acclaimed author of the Larkin biography First Boredom, Then Fear, the book shows how Larkin, as an individual, as a writer and indeed as a photographer, developed an acute sensitivity to all aspects of the world around him, from his love of open uninhabited landscapes and empty churches to his mixed feelings about crowds. There are also fascinating portraits of those people who were closest to Larkin, including his lovers, his mother and his literary peers. Authorised by the Larkin Estate, the book beautifully reproduces around 150 images from over 1,500 held by the Larkin archive at Hull: the great majority have never previously been seen in print. A substantial foreword by Mark Haworth-Booth, formerly curator of photography at the V&A and a poet in his own right, explores what it meant to be a serious amateur photographer of Larkin's generation. Larkin was a talented photographer and the archive is effectively his illustrated life. Together with Larkin's literary works and his letters, these images make up the third, so far unseen, constituent of the material upon which our future perceptions of him will be based.

Richard Bradford

Books

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