Discusses and assesses the writings and the work of author Arthur Ransome, a writer of children's literature in the 1930s. Argues that Ransome always wrote well, took pains to provide children with adventures that could very nearly have happened, and occasionally "wrote well enough for adults, too." (SR)

Using a Marxist framework modified by recent feminist theory, analyzes the work of three seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women writers. Illustrates how women's historical participation in production for consumption rather than exchange gave rise to the polyvocal critical perspective essential to the novel's identity. (CJS)

Explores the difference between people or authors meaning what they say and saying what they mean. Concludes that, whether authors say what they mean and mean what they say, readers will take from books what they wish to take. (PRA)

Argues for the study of popular female authors of the Victorian era on two grounds: (1) issues concerning Victorian female writers are relevant to problems in Victorian literary scholarship and to discussions about the relationship between literary theory and feminism; and (2) their works were printed on acid paper. (TB)

Considers the correlation between the role of community in the life of Toni Morrison and her work. Morrison grew up in the close-knit, multiracial, steel mill town of Lorain, Ohio. Her work often evokes a strong sense of place coupled with a need for communal belonging. (MJP)

Although Willa Cather is known primarily for her short fiction and novels, she began her writing career as a literary and drama critic while still a student at the University of Nebraska. Her writing experience with the university literary periodical led her to become the drama critic for the "Nebraska State Journal," and later for the…

"Dust Tracks on a Road," author Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography, is not a typical black autobiography. Hurston is a complex woman and author who addresses both black and white audiences, shifting the cadences of her voice to invoke a readership that can hear the textures of many voices and respond to an underlying call to a world…

Gerontologists have studied the role of memory and reminiscence in later life to see if life review leads to increased satisfaction in old age. Novelists offer some concrete examples of the varying ways that this review can affect the self-esteem of aging persons. Molly Keane, Elizabeth Bowen, and Peter Taylor all agree that late middle age…

From its inauspicious beginnings as a men's store giveaway and a "girlie" magazine in 1933, "Esquire" magazine quickly established a policy of literary excellence. By 1945, the magazine included the works on such major literary figures as Erskine Caldwell, John Dos Passos, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Ring Lardner, James…

This book describes the efforts made between 1815 and 1854 to secure an Anglo-American copyright agreement and indicates the factors that caused such efforts to fail. The book reports the effects that the lack of a copyright agreement had on overall Anglo-American relations and on British and American writers and publishers. Chapters provide…

Afro-American poets, dramatists, and prose writers have been affected by the tension between traditional African oral modes and various European-American written genres, as well as by the merger of "white taste and black need," which can be seen by examining the styles and themes of black literature in America from Lucy Terry's 1746 poem "Bar's…

This paper attempts to extract and summarize the truth-, fact-, and reality-bases of Chaim Perelman's and Mme. L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's "The New Rhetoric." This paper considers: the four basic factors which the theorist needs to take into account when interpreting "The New Rhetoric"; the descriptive characteristics of the…

The story "The Biscuit Eater" and the two films made from it can be used as a paradigm of the image of blacks in works made by whites. However, unlike those of 1940, reviewers of the 1972 Disney film were critical of every racially insensitive nuance, representing progress in racial awareness. (Author/GC)

Examines a book for children written by Farley Mowat, one of Canada's most popular and respected adult authors and a supporter of animal's and native's rights. (NKA)