Product Description: This new edition of Jane's Austen's 19th-century British novel presents the 1816 text along with contemporary critical essays that introduce students to Emma from gender, new historical, Marxist, cultural, and feminist perspectives...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Emma has long played matchmaker for her friends and believes her own heart immune from the lures of love. This is a fascinating, hilarious coming-of-age tale of one woman seeking her true nature and finding true love in the process. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This edition of Forster's classic novel reprints the authoritative text of the 1973 Abinger Edition together with five critical essays -- especially prepared for this volume -- that read "Howards End" from five contemporary critical perspectives...read more

Alistair Duckworth argues that the controversial "Mansfield Park" is fundamental to an appreciation of Jane Austen's fiction. Viewing this novel as the basis for a thematic unity in her work - a unity residing in her concept of the "estate" and of its proper "improvement" - he provides a fresh and convincing account of the novelist's values and of her artistic response to the contemporary forces that threatened them. For Jane Austen, Duckworth explains, the estate is emblematic of an entire moral and social heritage, and improvement, or the manner in which an individual relates to his estate, has crucial bearing on the state and direction of society. By tracing the theme of the estate and its proper improvement through the major novels, Duckworth demonstrates how committed Jane Austen was to the traditional values of a Christian humanist culture, yet how aware she was of the fragility of a society uninformed by responsible individual behaviour.

Written in an easy-to-read, accessible style by teachers with years of classroom experience, Masterwork Studies are guides to the literary works most frequently studied in high school. Presenting ideas that spark imaginations, these books help students to gain background knowledge on great literature useful for papers and exams. The goal of each study is to encourage creative thinking by presenting engaging information about each work and its author. This approach allows students to arrive at sound analyses of their own, based on in-depth studies of popular literature. Each volume: -- Illuminates themes and concepts of a classic text -- Uses clear, conversational language -- Is an accessible, manageable length from 140 to 170 pages -- Includes a chronology of the author's life and era -- Provides an overview of the historical context -- Offers a summary of its critical reception -- Lists primary and secondary sources and index