Stepping Westward

Discusses the overlooked works of Bradbury and Lodge in terms of their critical reception, Bakhtin's theory of the dialogical novel, and their relation to British literature and contemporary literature in general. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Frustrated novelist James Walker is setting off for the heartland of America to reinvigorate himself after years spent living a drab life in a drab English city. The institution for which he is destined, Benedict Arnold University – ‘Take a BA at BA’ – is still in the grip of McCarthyism, but Walker soon discovers that certain members of BA’s academic staff insist that he throws himself right into the swing of things . . . Characterized by Bradbury’s trademark satirical wit, Stepping Westward expertly explores the push-pull relationship of ’60s modernism and ’50s reservation.

Studies Wordsworth in the context of Zen thought and art.

Stepping Westward is the first book dedicated to the literature of the Scottish Highland tour of 1720-1830, a major cultural phenomenon that attracted writers and artists like Pennant, Johnson and Boswell, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Hogg, Keats, Daniell, and Turner, as well as numerous less celebrated travellers and tourists. Addressing more than a century's worth of literary and visual representations of the Highlands, the book casts new light on how the tour developed a modern literature of place, acting as a catalyst for thinking about improvement, landscape, and the shaping of British, Scottish, and Gaelic identities. It pays attention to the relationship between travellers and the native Gaels, whose world was plunged into crisis by rapid and forced social change. At the book's core lie the best-selling tours of Pennant and Dr Johnson, associated with attempts to 'improve' the intractable Gaidhealtachd in the wake of Culloden. Alongside the Ossian craze and Gilpin's picturesque, their books stimulated a wave of 'home tours' from the 1770s through the romantic period, including writing by women like Sarah Murray and Dorothy Wordsworth. The incidence of published Highland Tours (many lavishly illustrated), peaked around 1800, but as the genre reached exhaustion, the 'romantic Highlands' were reinvented in Scott's poems and novels, coinciding with steam boats and mass tourism, but also rack-renting, sheep clearance, and emigration.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Wordsworth's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important letters, prefaces, and essays - to give the essence of his work and thinking.