"Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is among the most popular, acclaimed and controversial of writers in English. His books have sold in great numbers, and he remains the youngest writer to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Many associate Kipling with poems such as 'If-', his novel Kim, his pioneering use of the short story form and such works for children as the Just So Stories. For others, though, Kipling is the very symbol of the British Empire...

"Jane Austen's stock in the popular marketplace has never been higher, while academic studies continue to uncover new aspects of her engagement with her world. This fully updated edition of the acclaimed Cambridge Companion offers clear, accessible coverage of the intricacies of Austen's works in their historical context, with biographical information and suggestions for further reading. Major scholars address Austen's six novels, the letters and...

An essential introduction and handbook for students and other readers of T.S. Eliot.

"T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is often considered to be the most important poem written in English in the twentieth century. The poem dramatically shattered old patterns of form and style, proposed a new paradigm for poetry and poetic thought, demanded recognition from all literary quarters, and changed the ways in which it was possible to approach, read, or write poetry. The Waste Land helped to define the literary and artistic period known as modernism....