501 Great Writers

- The most comprehensive single-volume guide to writers and their works on the market - Compiled by an international team of literary critics, authors, teachers and journalists - Beautifully illustrated with portraits of writers and photo graphs of their work - The perfect companion to the acclaimed 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - Also available in the same series: 501 Great Artists (March 2009)

Profiles 501 poets, novelists, playwrights, philosophers, and essayists from around the world and throughout history, with critical appraisals of each author's work and their place in world literature and culture.

Explore the fascinating lives and loves of the greatest novelists, poets, and playwrights. From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world's greatest writers. Each featured novelist, playwright, or poet is introduced by a stunning portrait, followed by photography and illustrations of locations and artifacts important in their lives - along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence. Trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each individual and affected their writing, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. You will also uncover details each writer's most famous pieces and understand the times and cultures they lived in - see how the world influenced them and how their works influenced the world. Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

The move to a new publisher has given The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual the opportunity to recommit to what it does best: present to a wide readership cant-free scholarly articles and essays and searching book reviews, all featuring a wide variety of approaches, written by both seasoned scholars and relative newcomers. Volume 24 features commentary on a range of Johnsonian topics: his reaction to Milton, his relation to the Allen family, his notes in his edition of Shakespeare, his use of Oliver Goldsmith in his Dictionary, and his always fascinating Nachleben. The volume also includes articles on topics of strong interest to Johnson: penal reform, Charlotte Lennox's professional literary career, and the "conjectural history" of Homer in the eighteenth century. For more than two decades, The Age of Johnson has presented a vast corpus of Johnsonian studies "in the broadest sense," as founding editor Paul J. Korshin put it in the preface to Volume 1, and it has retained the interest of a wide readership. In thousands of pages of articles, review essays, and reviews, The Age of Johnson has made a permanent contribution to our understanding of the eighteenth century, and particularly of Samuel Johnson, his circle, and his interests, and has also served as an outlet for writers who are not academics but have something important to say about the eighteenth century. ISSN 0884-5816.

"This guide to writing fiction is divided into three sections. Part One deals with the mechanics of writing. How do you get ideas and shepherd them through the writing and editing process into finished and publishable form? Where do you look for markets? Part Two consists of more general articles about writing and writers. Part Three includes pieces that are more personal to the author's own history as a writer. A bibliography of suggested reading completes the guide"--Page 4 of cover.

The book examines Charlie Chaplin's evolving perspective on dark comedy in his three war films, Shoulder Arms (1918), The Great Dictator (1940), and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). In the first he uses the genre in a groundbreaking manner but yet for a pro-war cause. In Dictator dark comedy is applied in an antiwar way. In Monsieur Verdoux Chaplin embraces the genre as an individual in defense against a society out to destroy him. All three are pivotal films in the development of the genre in film, with the latter two movies being very controversial for their time.

National Known film historian Wes Gehring explores Wise's life from his days in the Hoosier state to the beginning of his movie career at RKO studios working as the editor of Orson Welles's memorable Citizen Kane until his death in 2005. From his youth, sitting in darkened theaters enthralled by swashbuckling heroics, Wise developed a passion for film - a passion he followed for the rest of his life, making movies and winning Oscars in Hollywood.