Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction (26 volume set) contains titles originally published between 1977 and 1997. It includes titles on the roles of women in literature, fantasy as a genre, a source guide to science fiction and many titles by renowned academics looking at specific novelists, the progression of their work and how it has been influential within modern fiction. Covering writers such as Iris Murdoch, John le Carré, Doris Lessing, Kurt Vonnegut and others, this collection will be of particular interest to students of literature and literary criticism.
By Resa L. Dudovitz
October 01, 2021
Reviled by critics but loved by the readers, the bestseller has until recently provoked little serious critical interest. In The Myth of Superwoman, originally published in 1990, Resa Dudovitz looks at this international phenomenon, particularly at the origins of the bestseller system in the United...
By Elizabeth Dipple
October 01, 2021
Originally published in 1988, the last few decades had seen the appearance of some brilliant and complex new kinds of fiction. The ambitious experiments of writers such as Greene, Garcia Márquez, Borges, Nabakov, Calvino, Beckett, Eco, Spark, Hoban, Murdoch, Bellow, Ozick, and Lessing among others ...
By Tony Tanner
October 01, 2021
Thomas Pynchon is now recognized as a major contemporary novelist and perhaps the most important American writer since Melville. His work is both richly imaginative and amazingly erudite and can be compared, in its complexity, linguistic playfulness and experimentation and wealth of allusion, to ...
By Ann Swinfen
October 17, 2019
The modern fantasy novel might hardly seem to need a defence, but its position in contemporary literature in the 1980s was still rather ambivalent. Many post-war writers had produced highly successful fantasy novels, some phenomenal publishing successes had occurred in the field, and an increasing ...
By Eric Homberger
October 17, 2019
Since the heyday of Ian Fleming’s fantasy superspy James Bond, the novels of John le Carré have held up to readers across the world a sombre, fascinating picture of decline, deception and ethical ambiguity. In this study, originally published in 1986, the first to include an interpretation of A ...
By John Haffenden
October 17, 2019
Originally published in 1985, fourteen foremost writers of fiction give detailed accounts of their writings in this absorbing collection by John Haffenden, whom The Sunday Times has applauded for having ‘perfected’ the art of the literary interview. Bringing together discussions with a wide range ...
By Ian Carter
October 08, 2019
The campus novel is one of the best loved forms of fiction in the post-war period. But what are its characteristic themes? What are its prejudices? And what does it take for granted? Originally published in 1990, this is the first study to connect literary, historical, and sociological aspects of ...
By Lorna Sage
October 08, 2019
Doris Lessing was one of the most impressive, prolific and vital of twentieth century writers. Her fiction is obsessed with the workings of cultural change and she radically extended the novel’s scope – most famously and influentially in The Golden Notebook – by questioning the realist tradition ...
By Paul Levine
October 01, 2019
During his lifetime E. L. Doctorow was a remarkable phenomenon among contemporary American novelists. He was a serious writer who was popular, a political writer who was a stylist, an original writer who was highly eclectic and an historical writer who invented the past. In this study, originally ...
By Elizabeth Dipple
October 01, 2019
Originally published in 1982, this brilliant study provides a perceptive and up-to-date assessment of the novels of Iris Murdoch, up to and including Nuns and Soldiers, published in 1980. The Fire and the Sun, her book on Plato, is also considered in depth. It is not a critical biography, but ...
By Peter Conradi
October 01, 2019
John Fowles had gained great popularity as a contemporary novelist on both sides of the Atlantic. In this comprehensive study of his work, originally published in 1982, Peter Conradi relates his work to his life, his ideas and his place in contemporary English fiction at the time. Conradi sees him ...