Includes for example the following essays and stories: The Reporter / Dr. Finch and Miss Tregoff / James Hanratty / The Lizzie Borden Memorial Lectures / Spy Haunts of the world / The Legend of the rue Royale / The Novelist and the Film-Maker etc.

″Eric Ambler was born into a family of entertainers and in his early years helped out as a puppeteer. However, he initially chose engineering as a full time career, although this quickly gave way to writing. In World War II he entered the army and looked likely to fight in the line, but was soon after commissioned and ended the war as assistant director of the army film unit and a Lieutenant-Colonel. This experience translated into civilian life and Ambler had a very successful career as a screen writer, receiving an Academy Award for his work on ‘The Cruel Sea’ by Nicolas Monsarrat in 1953. Many of his own works have been filmed, the most famous probably being ‘Light of Day’, filmed as ‘Topkapi’ under which title it is now published. He established a reputation as a thriller writer of extraordinary depth and originality and received many accolades during his lifetime, including two Edgar Awards from The Mystery Writers of America (best novel for ‘Topkapi’ and best biographical work for ‘Here Lies Eric Ambler’), and two Gold Dagger Awards from the Crime Writer’s Association (‘Passage of Arms’ and ‘The Levanter’). Often credited as being the inventor of the modern political thriller, John Le Carre once described Ambler as ‘the source on which we all draw’. A recurring theme in Ambler’s works is the success of the well meaning yet somewhat bungling amateur who triumphs in the face of both adversity and hardened professionals. He wrote under his own name and also during the 1950’s a series of novels as Eliot Reed, with Charles Rhodda. These are now published under the ‘Ambler’ umbrella.” (Publisher)

Keywords: American Literature, Crime, English Literature, Mystery, Novel

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When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life. [Penguin Books]

Keywords: Chuck Kruger Cape Clear Collection, English Authors, English Literature, Literature, Literature of the 19th Century

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Includes for example the following chapters: The Women’s Culture / Circles of Support / The Juvenilia: Convenient Ambiguities / The “Middle” Fictions: Visible Conflicts / Pride and Prejudice: Cultural Duality and Feminist Literary Criticism etc.

″In an age when genteel women wrote little more than personal letters, how did Jane Austen manage to become a novelist? Was she an isolated genius who rose to fame through sheer talent? Did she draw strength from the support of her family, or from woman writers who went before her? In Jane Austen among Women Deborah Kaplan argues that these explanations are either misleading or insufficient. Austen, Kaplan contends, participated actively in a women’s culture that promoted female authority and achievement – a culture that not only helped her become a novelist but also influenced her fiction. Kaplan shows that women of Jane Austen’s family and community endorsed their society’s male-dominated culture and its “domestic ideology” while also in their intimate friendships with other women expressing distance from it. Drawing on this framework of women’s dual perspectives, Kaplan offers new insights about Austen’s life and work, including her decision not to marry and her attempts to keep her writing secret. She also examines Austen’s fictional representations of loyalties divided between the dominant patriarchal values of her community and the unconventional, even subversive, values and expressions that circulated privately among women. Jane Austen among Women presents a fresh, interdisciplinary approach to feminist literary studies. The discussion of Austen and her family and community is based on extensive research in letters, diaries, poems, and memoirs. Much of this material, discovered by the author in British record offices and in private hands, has never before been published. Kaplan also provides new readings of Austen’s fiction, including detailed discussions of the often-ignored juvenilia and the transitional producations Lady Susan and The Watsons.” (Googlebooks)

Keywords: 19th Century, Biography, English Literature, English Novelists, Feminist Literary Studies, Literary Studies, Novelist, Women and Literature

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Includes the following chapters: Taking Oneself for Granted / Amateurs in the Art of Living / The Brain as a Gentleman-At-Large / The First Practical Step / What ‘Living’ Chiefly is / The Daily Friction / Mischievously Overworking it / Success and Failure / L.S.D. / Reason, Reason! etc.

″Arnold Bennett was born on May 27, 1867 in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. He began his working career as a law clerk and later he left the legal field and became an editor for the magazine Woman. His first novel was ‘A Man from the North.’ He wrote several novels set in Hanley, the town where he was born. These are known as the Five Town novels. Other titles include ‘The Babylon Hotel,’ ‘The Truth about an Author,’ and ‘How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.’ Bennett won the 1923 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel ‘Riceyman Steps.’ ‘The Journal of Arnold Bennett’ was published posthumously in three volumes. Bennett was also the author of ‘Hugo’ which was made into a major motion picture in 2011 starring Jude law and Ben Kingsley, directed by Martin Scorsese. During WWI, Bennett was Director of Propaganda for France at the Ministry of Information. (At that time ‘propaganda’ did not have the negative connotations it would have later in the twentieth century.) This appointment was based on the recommendation of Lord Beaverbrook, who also recommended him as Deputy Minister of that department at the end of the war. Bennett refused a knighthood in 1918. He died in London of typhoid fever on March 27, 1931.” (Google Books)

″As well as Bennett’s novels, his non-fiction work has withstood the test of time, and is widely read today. In the Human Machine, Bennett explores the vital questions about how we can operate to our optimum potential. His answers are efficient and practical, and they work for the common man and woman.” (Amazon)

Keywords: 20th century, English Literature, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Self Help

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Keywords: 19th Century Literature, 20th Century Literature, English Literature

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