This book charts the publishing industry and bestselling fiction from 1900, featuring a comprehensive list of all bestselling fiction titles in the UK. This third edition includes a new introduction which features additional information on current trends in reading including the rise of Black, Asian and LGBTQIA+ publishing; the continuing importance of certain genres and up to date trends in publishing, bookselling, library borrowing and literacy. There are sections on writing for children, on the importance of audiobooks and book clubs, self- published bestsellers as well as many new entries to the present day including bestselling authors such as David Walliams, Peter James, George R R Martin and far less well known authors whose books s sell in their thousands. This is the essential guide to best-selling books, authors, genres, publishing and bookselling since 1900, providing a unique insight into more than a century of entertainment, and opening a window into the reading habits and social life of the British from the death of Queen Victoria to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Victoria's Madmen is the story of those who were outcasts by temperament and choice; the non-conformists of the Victorian Age. Clive Bloom's readable account of the dark underbelly of Victoria's Britain captures the unrest bubbling under the surface of strait-laced Victorian society.
From regicides to revolutionaries; from fascists to anarchists; from Tom Paine to Tom Wintringham, this book is a history of noble ideals and crushing failures in which Clive Bloom takes us on a journey through British history, exploring our often rocky relationship with the ruling elite. A History of Britian's Fight for a Republic reveals our surprising legacy of terrorism and revolution, reminding us that Britain has witnessed centuries of revolt. This is a history encompassing three bloody civil wars in Ireland, the bombing campaigns by the IRA, two Welsh uprisings, one Lowland Scottish civil war, uprisings in Derbyshire and Kent, five attempts to assassinate the entire cabinet and seize London, and numerous attempts to murder the royal family. This new and revised edition takes the story of modern monarchy back to its origins in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and forward to the reign of Charles III and includes the story of the continuing struggle for democratic rights and republican values from medieval times up to the present struggle for Scottish and Welsh independence.
We live in an age of terrorism and like to think that the United Kingdom is a reasonably peaceful place, largely untroubled by the atrocity committed by foreign fanatics. This book throws light on the links between English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh republicanism and shows how the anti-terror state was born not in 2001 but in the 1790s.
This highly accessible anthology of Gothic writings and criticism provides an essential guide to the genre. The second edition of this critically acclaimed book has been thoroughly revised to include material from the early gothic and a fresh set of contemporary essays, with a supporting timeline and thought provoking introductory material.
Here is an exploration of pulp literature and pulp mentalities: an investigation into the nature and theory of the contemporary mind in art and in life. Here too, the violent, the sensational and the erotic signify different facets of the modern experience played out in the gaudy pages of kitsch literature. Clive Bloom offers the reader a chance to investigate the underworld of literary production and from it find a new set of co-ordinates for questions regarding publishing and reading practices in America and Britain, ideas of genre, problems related to commercial production, concerns regarding high and low culture, the canon and censorship, as well as a discussion of the rhetoric of current critical debate. Concentrating on remembered authors as well as many long disregarded or forgotten, Cult Fiction provides a theory of kitsch art that radically alters our perceptions of literature and literary values while providing a panorama of an almost forgotten history: the history of pulp.
The first in a three-volume sequence, this book covers the period between 1900 and 1929, providing a perceptive and thorough analysis of British literature within its historical, cultural and artistic context. It identifies the crucial, interwoven relationships between literature and the visual arts, modern poetry, popular fiction, journalism, cinema, music and radio. Much factual detail and a literary chronology guide the reader through the text.
This follow up to Violent London deals in detail with the story behind the 2010 and 2011 riots both from the perspective of the protesters, rioters and from the point of view of the police and government. Bloom uses reportage, parliamentary, police and security briefings, as well as the voices and theory of modern protest, to tell the story.
‘Scary but enlightening’ Christopher Stone ‘This fascinating, revealing and engagingly written book gets to the heart of the secret state and undemocratic hidden political power through which UK citizens are today primarily ruled.’ Mark Curtis, author of Secret Affairs, Web of Deceit and Unpeople Margaret Thatcher remains one of the United Kingdom’s most polarising prime ministers. This provocative investigation sheds light on the secret, internal ‘cold war’ that she waged against ‘the enemy within’; everyone she could not see eye to eye with. It was a campaign fuelled by paranoia on both the left and right of the political spectrum and fought with corruption, black propaganda, dirty tricks and even murder. Expertly juxtaposing notable events with today’s political arena, this new and updated edition of Thatcher’s Secret War surmises that although Thatcher’s ideals seem to have vanished, one remains: the power and importance of the extra parliamentary state and its surveillance methods and hidden powers in a new age of terrorism.
This volume presents 13 essays on the Spy Thriller in the 20th century and includes a critical introduction to the subject. Each essay combines historical and aesthetic theory with practical criticism. Authors covered range from Joseph Conrad and John Buchan to Ian Fleming and John Le Carre.
This series aims to bring to academics, students and general readers the best contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural areas. This volume contains 17 critical essays on influential suspense writers of the 20th century.
11 essays which attempt to combine contemporary literary theory and sound practical criticism from a range of literary approaches. The contributors cover the poetry of John Donne, the theology and impact of The Book of Common Prayer, the politics of Jacobean theatre and other themes.
British culture has changed almost beyond recognition since 1956. Angry young men have been displaced by Yuppies, Elvis by the Spice Girls, and meat and two veg by continental cuisine. What is more, as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales showed, the British are now more famous for a trembling lower lip than a stiff upper one. This volume, the last in the series, examines the transformations in literature and culture over the last forty years. An introductory essay provides a context for the following chapters by arguing that although there have been significant changes in British life, there are also profound continuities. It also discusses the rise of 'theory' and its impact on the humanities. Each essay in the volume concentrates on a facet of British culture over the last half century from painting to poetry, from the seriousness of the novel to the postmodern ironies of the computing age. What we get from this selection is not only an informed history of the relations between literature and culture but also a lively sense of cultural change, not least of which is the new found relationship between literature and other arts which ushers us into the new millennium.
This book contains eighteen original essays by leading Joyce scholars on the eighteen separate chapters of Ulysses. It attempts to explore the richness of Joyce's extraordinary novel more fully than could be done by any single scholar. Joyce's habit of using, when writing each chapter in Ulysses, a particular style, tone, point of view, and narrative structure gives each contributor a special set of problems with which to engage, problems which coincide in every case with certain of his special interests. The essays in this volume complement and illuminate one another to provide the most comprehensive account yet published of Joyce's many-sided masterpiece.
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