Susan Wolfson

The Longman Anthology of British Literature is the most comprehensive and thoughtfully arranged text in the field, offering a rich selection of compelling British authors through the ages. With its first edition, The Longman Anthology of British Literature created a new paradigm for anthologies. Responding to major shifts in literary studies over the past thirty years, it was the first collection to pay sustained attention to the contexts within which literature is produced, even as it broadened the scope of that literature to embrace the full cultural diversity of the British Isles. Within its pages, canonical authors mingle with newly visible writers; English accents are heard next to Anglo-Norman, Welsh, Gaelic, and Scottish ones; female and male voices are set in dialogue; literature from the British Isles is integrated with post-colonial writing; and major works are illumined by clusters of shorter texts that bring literary, social, and historical issues vividly to life. The Fifth Edition builds on the pioneering features of the previous four editions, expanding the strong core of frequently taught works while continuing to lead the way in responding to the shifting interests of the discipline.

From Longman's Cultural Editions series, come three tales of transformation: Mary Shelley’s Transformation, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer. In these three nightmarish tales, an uncanny other turns out to be a second self, a sharer of intimate anxieties, repressed energies, dark impulses.

From the Longman Cultural Editions series, this second edition of Frankenstein presents Mary Shelley's remarkable novel in several provocative and illuminating contexts: cultural, critical, and literary. Series Editor Susan J. Wolfson presents the 1818 version of Mary Shelley's famous novel in its cultural and historical contexts. Like all great works of fiction, Frankenstein gains depth and dimension from its "conversation" with contemporary texts, especially those by Shelley's own parents, husband, and friends. A lively introduction is complemented by a chronology coordinating Shelley's life with key historical events and a speculative calendar of the novel's events in the late eighteenth century. In addition to the 1818 text, this cultural edition features the introduction to and a sample revision of the 1831 version. New to this Edition is Frankentalk, a section of selected references to Frankenstein in the popular press, and the complete text of Richard Brinsley Peake’s Frankenstein, A Romantic Drama, the first stage version of Frankenstein.

From Longman's Cultural Editions series, Jane Austen'sPride and Prejudice , edited by Claudia Johnson and Susan Wolfson, offers the text of the first edition and is extensively annotated in several contexts, from Austen's views, to cultural issues, to first reviews and critical reception.

This anthology brings together three powerfully original figures who vividly capture the spirit and anxieties of their age. Thomas Hood and Winthrop Mackworth Praed write with a self-conscious playfulness about literary history and traditions as well as an active and often satirical engagement with contemporary social and political culture. Thomas Lovell Beddoes has always held the interest of the \u201cdark\u201d Victorianists for his lushly lurid imagination and of the modernists for his ironic, frequently caustic verses. Most of all, these are three amazingly interesting poets—full of verbal wit, evocative imagery, compelling imaginations. Although he started by writing in the style of Keats, Thomas Hood (1799–1845) declared, \u201cI have to be a lively Hood for a livelihood,\u201d and devoted most of his career to comic verse. But his sheer verbal ingenuity and endlessly inventive punning do not conceal his phobias and fears, nor overshadow the emerging social protest that was to shape the impressive poems in his later years. Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839) observed the social scene of his day—the flirtations, political intrigues, elegant chit-chat, and parliamentary procedures—with sparkling, self-deprecating wit. Having read law, Praed was called to the Bar in 1829 and entered Parliament as a Conservative in 1830. Even so, he wrote to his school friend and future editor, \u201cHaving been favoured by Nature with a long face, a short purse, and two elder Brothers, I find no way of making myself popular in the circle in which she has placed me, except versifying.\u201d Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849), who committed suicide, was, in the editors\u2019 words \u201cbrilliant, solitary, eccentric, erratic, homosexual, politically radical, a poet of powerful, haunting imagination, and, like the other morbidly witty poets in this volume, is most characteristic for his defiance of easy characterization.\u201d He has been called the last Elizabethan, a Jacobean scion, an original interpreter of gothic terror, the first modernist, and, with his comic grotesqueries, a precursor of the twentieth-century theater of the absurd. The editors\u2019 introductions to each poet are lively and accessible to the non-specialist, while their editorial work, both in establishing the texts and in their annotation and apparatus, makes this an ideal text for specialist study as well.

Although the Chicago area is famous the world over for its splendid architecture, the architectural treasures of the suburban area have remained largely unknown. Ira Bach, assisting by Susan Wolfson, has now provided a comprehensive readable guide to more than 850 nineteenth century dwellings, commercial buildings, public buildings, and churches which are memorable and well worth visiting for their fine architecture and their historic significance. Organized by county, then by town, this book shows us the real roots of Chicago architecture. The 35 Walking Tours make up the heart of the book. Each tour has been planned to "walk you" from one historic building to the next in each of 35 towns. There are easy-to-follow foot maps, as well as invaluable notes on style and design. All the Walking Tours are 2 miles or less from start to finish. Also included is an Introduction by Carroll William Westfall, associate professor of history of architecture and the art of University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. 42 major maps accompany the foot tours and auto routes, and over 110 photos were made especially for this book by Harold A. Nelson, an architect and photographer.