Harold Bloom's Books

Essayists and Prophets

By: Harold Bloom

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Essayists and Prophets

By: Harold Bloom

Presents a compilation of Bloom's introductions to the Modern critical views and Modern critical interpretations series of books, focusing on twenty essayists and prophets.

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241

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791093700

ISBN 13

9780791093702

The Western Canon

The Books and School of the Ages

By: Harold Bloom

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The Western Canon

The Books and School of the Ages

By: Harold Bloom

The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review). Placing William Shakespeare at the “center of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickenson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion. “An impressive work…deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michel Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

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751

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published Date

ISBN 10

0547546483

ISBN 13

9780547546483

Possessed by Memory

The Inward Light of Criticism

By: Harold Bloom

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Possessed by Memory

The Inward Light of Criticism

By: Harold Bloom

Wonderful. . . . Spectacular. . . . You feel the pulse of life, what poetry can bring to us if we let it." —The Philadelphia Inquirer "This audacious personal odyssey offers readers a cosmos of possibilities when contemplating what happens once we 'shuffle off this mortal coil.'" —The Christian Science Monitor "An elegiac meditation on a life lived through books." —O, The Oprah Magazine "The great critic revisits the literature that has meant most to him." —The New York Times Book Review Here is the daringly original literary critic's most personal book: a four-part spiritual autobiography in the form of brief, luminous readings of poetry, drama, and prose—much of which he has known by heart since childhood. As one of his own mentors, M. H. Abrams, has said, to read Bloom's commentaries is like "reading classic authors by flashes of lightning." Gone are the polemics; here Bloom argues elegiacally with nobody but himself. In "A Voice she Heard Before the World Was Made," he offers startling meditations on foundational concerns of Biblical study. "In the Elegy Season" finds him coming to terms movingly, from a new vantage, with writers on whom he has brooded for much of his life. And with brio and bravura in "The Imperfect Is Our Paradise," Bloom ranges dazzlingly through twentieth-century American poetry, from Wallace Stevens to Amy Clampitt. Possessed by Memory, in short, is essential Bloom.

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546

Publisher

Vintage

Published Date

ISBN 10

0525562478

ISBN 13

9780525562474

The Daemon Knows

Literary Greatness and the American Sublime

By: Harold Bloom

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The Daemon Knows

Literary Greatness and the American Sublime

By: Harold Bloom

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND KIRKUS REVIEWS Hailed as “the indispensable critic” by The New York Review of Books, Harold Bloom—New York Times bestselling writer and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University—has for decades been sharing with readers and students his genius and passion for understanding literature and explaining why it matters. Now he turns at long last to his beloved writers of our national literature in an expansive and mesmerizing book that is one of his most incisive and profoundly personal to date. A product of five years of writing and a lifetime of reading and scholarship, The Daemon Knows may be Bloom’s most masterly book yet. Pairing Walt Whitman with Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson with Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne with Henry James, Mark Twain with Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens with T. S. Eliot, and William Faulkner with Hart Crane, Bloom places these writers’ works in conversation with one another, exploring their relationship to the “daemon”—the spark of genius or Orphic muse—in their creation and helping us understand their writing with new immediacy and relevance. It is the intensity of their preoccupation with the sublime, Bloom proposes, that distinguishes these American writers from their European predecessors. As he reflects on a lifetime lived among the works explored in this book, Bloom has himself, in this magnificent achievement, created a work touched by the daemon. Praise for The Daemon Knows “Enrapturing . . . radiant . . . intoxicating . . . Harold Bloom, who bestrides our literary world like a willfully idiosyncratic colossus, belongs to the party of rapture.”—Cynthia Ozick, The New York Times Book Review “The capstone to a lifetime of thinking, writing and teaching . . . The primary strength of The Daemon Knows is the brilliance and penetration of the connections Bloom makes among the great writers of the past, the shrewd sketching of intellectual feuds or oppositions that he calls agons. . . . Bloom’s books are like a splendid map of literature, a majestic aerial view that clarifies what we cannot see from the ground.”—The Washington Post “Audacious . . . The Yale literary scholar has added another remarkable treatise to his voluminous body of work.”—The Huffington Post “The sublime The Daemon Knows is a veritable feast for the general reader (me) as well as the advanced (I assume) one.”—John Ashbery “Mesmerizing.”—New York Journal of Books “Bloom is a formidable critic, an extravagant intellect.”—Chicago Tribune “As always, Bloom conveys the intimate, urgent, compelling sense of why it matters that we read these canonical authors.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Few people write criticism as nakedly confident as Bloom’s any more.”—The Guardian (U.K.)

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546

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812987462

ISBN 13

9780812987461

Poets and Poems

By: Harold Bloom

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Poets and Poems

By: Harold Bloom

Presents a compilation of Bloom's introductions to the Modern critical views and Modern critical interpretations series of books, focusing on poets and poems.

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507

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791093751

ISBN 13

9780791093757

The Anxiety of Influence

A Theory of Poetry

By: Harold Bloom

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The Anxiety of Influence

A Theory of Poetry

By: Harold Bloom

The book remains a central work of criticism for all students of literature.

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212

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195112210

ISBN 13

9780195112214

Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

The Power of the Reader's Mind Over a Universe of Death

By: Harold Bloom

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Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

The Power of the Reader's Mind Over a Universe of Death

By: Harold Bloom

“The great poems, plays, novels, stories teach us how to go on living. . . . Your own mistakes, accidents, failures at otherness beat you down. Rise up at dawn and read something that matters as soon as you can.” So Harold Bloom, the most famous literary critic of his generation, exhorts readers of his last book; one that praises the sustaining power of poetry. "Passionate. . . . Perhaps Bloom’s most personal work, this is a fitting last testament to one of America’s leading twentieth-century literary minds."—Publishers Weekly This dazzling celebration of the power of poetry to sublimate death—completed weeks before Harold Bloom died—shows how literature renews life amid what Milton called “a universe of death.” Bloom reads as a way of taking arms against the sea of life’s troubles, taking readers on a grand tour of the poetic voices that have haunted him through a lifetime of reading. “High literature,” he writes, “is a saving lie against time, loss of individuality, premature death.” In passages of breathtaking intimacy, we see him awake late at night, reciting lines from Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Montaigne, Blake, Wordsworth, Hart Crane, Jay Wright, and many others. He feels himself “edged by nothingness,” uncomprehending, but still sustained by reading. Generous and clear‑eyed, this is among Harold Bloom’s most ambitious and most moving books.

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Page Count

672

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300247281

ISBN 13

9780300247282

New York

By: Jesse Zuba,Harold Bloom,Sterling Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom

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New York

By: Jesse Zuba,Harold Bloom,Sterling Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom

Discusses New York City as a source of inspiration as well as a home to writers throughout history.

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247

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438115563

ISBN 13

9781438115566

The Anatomy of Influence

Literature as a Way of Life

By: Harold Bloom

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The Anatomy of Influence

Literature as a Way of Life

By: Harold Bloom

Bloom leads readers through the labyrinthine paths which link the writers and critics who have informed and inspired him for so many years.

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551

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300179901

ISBN 13

9780300179903

The Breaking of the Vessels

By: Harold Bloom

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The Breaking of the Vessels

By: Harold Bloom

A discussion of poetic theory examines the language of poetry, three models of poetic originality, and the technique whereby modern poets come to terms with those of the past

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107

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226060446

ISBN 13

9780226060446

Shakespeare: Invention of the Human

The Invention of the Human

By: Harold Bloom

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Shakespeare: Invention of the Human

The Invention of the Human

By: Harold Bloom

The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer." -Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition, Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.

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Page Count

772

Publisher

Riverhead Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

157322751X

ISBN 13

9781573227513

Lear

The Great Image of Authority

By: Harold Bloom

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Lear

The Great Image of Authority

By: Harold Bloom

From one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, a beloved professor who has taught the Bard for over half a century—an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Lear, arguably Shakespeare’s most tragic and compelling character, the third in a series of five short books hailed as Harold Bloom’s “last love letter to the shaping spirit of his imagination” (The New York Times Book Review). King Lear is one of the most famous and compelling characters in literature. The aged, abused monarch—a man in his eighties, like Bloom himself—is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from grace and widely agreed to be Shakespeare’s most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are seventeen and another when we are forty, Bloom writes about his shifting understanding—over the course of his own lifetime—of this endlessly compelling figure, so that the book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity. Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare’s characters make. Now he brings that insight to his “measured, thoughtful assessment of a key play in the Shakespeare canon” (Kirkus Reviews). “Lear is a “short, superb book that has a depth of observation acquired from a lifetime of study” (Publishers Weekly).

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Page Count

176

Publisher

Scribner

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501164201

ISBN 13

9781501164200

W. E. B. Du Bois

By: Harold Bloom,Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, Ed

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W. E. B. Du Bois

By: Harold Bloom,Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, Ed

Examines the author's literary works through critical essays, and discusses how his essays and works of fiction reflect his philosophies and political views.

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Page Count

271

Publisher

Chelsea House Pub

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791078205

ISBN 13

9780791078204

Aldous Huxley

By: Harold Bloom

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Aldous Huxley

By: Harold Bloom

A collection of critical essays on Aldous Huxley and his work.

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242

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438112734

ISBN 13

9781438112732

How to Read and Why

By: Harold Bloom

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How to Read and Why

By: Harold Bloom

Bloom, the best-known literary critic of our time, shares his extensive knowledge of and profound joy in the works of a constellation of major writers, including Shakespeare, Cervantes, Austen, Dickinson, Melville, Wilde, and O'Connor in this eloquent invitation to readers to read and read well.

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292

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0684859076

ISBN 13

9780684859071

Cleopatra

I Am Fire and Air

By: Harold Bloom

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Cleopatra

I Am Fire and Air

By: Harold Bloom

From Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, comes an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Cleopatra—one of the Bard’s most riveting and memorable female characters—in “a masterfully perceptive reading of this seductive play’s endless wonders” (Kirkus Reviews). Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history—and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. She is lover of Marc Antony, defender of Egypt, and, perhaps most enduringly, a champion of life. Cleopatra is supremely vexing, tragic, and complex. She has fascinated readers and audiences for centuries and has been played by the greatest actresses of their time, from Elizabeth Taylor to Vivien Leigh to Janet Suzman to Judi Dench. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Cleopatra with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime. The book becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our own humanity. Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare’s characters make. With Cleopatra, “Bloom brings considerable expertise and his own unique voice to this book” (Publishers Weekly), delivering exhilarating clarity and inviting us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. The result is an invaluable resource from our greatest literary critic.

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Page Count

160

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

150116418X

ISBN 13

9781501164187

Civil Disobedience

By: Harold Bloom

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Civil Disobedience

By: Harold Bloom

Provides an examination of the use of civil disobedience in classic literary works.

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291

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1604134399

ISBN 13

9781604134391

Wallace Stevens

The Poems of Our Climate

By: Harold Bloom

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Wallace Stevens

The Poems of Our Climate

By: Harold Bloom

Offers authoritative readings of the major long poems and sequences, exploring their relationship to one another and to the works of Stevens' precursors.

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Page Count

436

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801491851

ISBN 13

9780801491856

Falstaff

Give Me Life

By: Harold Bloom

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Falstaff

Give Me Life

By: Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom writes about Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom writes about his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and the book as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity"--Publisher's description.

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176

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501164139

ISBN 13

9781501164132

EPZ Deconstruction and Criticism

By: Harold Bloom

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EPZ Deconstruction and Criticism

By: Harold Bloom

Five essential and challenging essays by leading post-modern theorists on the art and nature of interpretation: Jacques Derrida, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man, and J. Hillis Miller.

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228

Publisher

A&C Black

Published Date

ISBN 10

0826476929

ISBN 13

9780826476920

Robert Frost

By: Bruce Fish,Becky Fish,Sterling Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom

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Robert Frost

By: Bruce Fish,Becky Fish,Sterling Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom

Provides insight into four of Frost's poems along with a short history of the man and his life.

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Page Count

125

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438115431

ISBN 13

9781438115436

The Shadow of a Great Rock

A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible

By: Harold Bloom

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The Shadow of a Great Rock

A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible

By: Harold Bloom

Examines the King James translation of the Bible, comparing it with other translations and noting its superiority over previous editions, and highlights the influences of the King James Bible in literature from the Romantic era to today.

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321

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300166834

ISBN 13

9780300166835

Genius

A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

By: Harold Bloom

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Genius

A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

By: Harold Bloom

What is genius? It is the trait, says Harold Bloom, of standing both of and above an age, the ancient principle that recognizes and hallows the God within us, and the gift of breathing life into what is best in every living person. Now, in a monumental achievement of scholarship, America's preeminent literary critic presents an unprecedented celebration of one hundred of the most creative literary minds in history. From the Bible to Socrates, through the transcendent masterpieces of Shakespeare and Dante, down through the ages to Hemingway, Faulkner, and Ralph Ellison, Harold Bloom explores the many parallels among his chosen geniuses and the surprising ways in which they have influenced one another over the centuries. Accompanied by revealing excerpts from their works that continue to astonish, enchant, and move readers, Bloom's insightful and spirited analyses illuminate and enlarge our common understanding of Western literary and spiritual culture...and offer us a grand yet intimate tour of it in one magnificent volume.

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Page Count

832

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0446691291

ISBN 13

9780446691291

Hamlet

By: William Shakespeare,Harold Bloom

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Hamlet

By: William Shakespeare,Harold Bloom

This fully annotated version of Hamlet makes the play completely accessible to readers in the 21st century, and offers help with vocabulary and usage of Elizabethan English, pronunciation, prosody and alternative readings of phrases and lines.

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249

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300101759

ISBN 13

9780300101751

Beowulf

By: Harold Bloom

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Beowulf

By: Harold Bloom

Presents a series of critical essays discussing the structure, themes, and subject matter of the epic poem which relates the exploits of the Anglo-Saxon warrior Beowulf, and how he came to defeat the monster Grendel.

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288

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438113684

ISBN 13

9781438113685

Hamlet: Poem Unlimited

By: Harold Bloom

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Hamlet: Poem Unlimited

By: Harold Bloom

In Harold Bloom's New York Times bestselling Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, the world's foremost literary critic theorized on the authorship of the historic play Hamlet. In this engaging new stand-alone work, he offers a full and warmly personal account of the play itself, explores its extraordinary impact throughout the history of western literature, and seeks to uncover the mystery at its heart.

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Page Count

177

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1573223778

ISBN 13

9781573223775

Bloom's How to Write about Walt Whitman

By: Frank D. Casale,Harold Bloom

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Bloom's How to Write about Walt Whitman

By: Frank D. Casale,Harold Bloom

Offers advice on writing essays about the poetry of Walt Whitman and lists sample topics.

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273

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1438127685

ISBN 13

9781438127682

Stephen King

By: Harold Bloom

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Stephen King

By: Harold Bloom

Though often disparaged by literary critics, Stephen King's work has influenced a generation of horror and science fiction writers. Acting as a study guide, this book features the important critical interpretations of the horror master's work.

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Page Count

237

Publisher

Infobase Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

143811348X

ISBN 13

9781438113487

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