Studying English literature at school is very different to reading for pleasure.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on English literature
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Seemingly mild mannered English academics make for thrilling storytelling.
The books Goodreads users read more often than are assigned in university tend to be by women writers and to feature strong female protagonists.
Chaucer’s career as a secret agent helped him assume different disguises in his writing. Some scholars interpret this role-playing as Chaucer being sexist and anti-Semitic.
First published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s children’s book has never been out of print. It continues to appeal to adults who prefer childhood.
Anonymous satire by a 1709 political writer worked like today’s partisan clickbait.
Written by Kenneth Grahame as a story for his young son, The Wind in the Willows has also been read as a social satire and a gay allegory.
It’s a very modern version which gives the female characters more agency than in previous adaptations.
Written in 1929, this short, passionate book highlighting the silencing of women’s voices continues to shape our culture.
The writer was drowned at the age of 44, but he left three novels which have come to represent the decline of the British Empire.
Great stories move and they challenge. They draw attention to diverse social and cultural issues and to the transformative potential of empathy. But they can be difficult too.
Almost as soon as Dickens died in 1870, writers and illustrators began to take liberties with his life and career.
Dickens had some clever little narrative tricks, which become clear when his work is analysed as a single data set.
Bleach to defeat COVID-19 or fire to dispel plague, history is full of quack medicine.
A great novel transports you to a time and a place. Here are five of them.
New technology is helping archaeologists uncover details of the playwright's home, workplaces and his final resting place.
The Bard's plays have an unfair reputation for being hard. You're probably reading them in the wrong way.
Some of the most exciting fiction and memoir is being done in the form of graphic novels. Here are some of the very best.
Books were an important weapon on the home front in the second world war.
Written 60 years after the bubonic plague swept London, Defoe’s account may have been a hoax, but it still rings true today.
Top contributors
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Lecturer in English Literature, University of Oxford
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Lecturer in Fantasy and Children's Literature, University of Glasgow
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Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University
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Professor of Contemporary Literature, University of Reading
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Professor of English and National Teaching Fellow, Birmingham City University
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Conjoint Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle
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Lecturer in English, Flinders University
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Associate Professor of English Literature, University of Miami
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Professor in English Literature, University of Liverpool
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Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Senior Lecturer in English, University of Surrey
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Professor of the History of Linguistics, University of Sheffield
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Professor of English, Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University
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Lecturer of English Literature, Lancaster University
