Literature & Literary Studies
June 2026
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Literature & Literary StudiesOctober 2009The four funerals in Beowulf
by Gale Owen-Crocker
It is well known that the old English poem Beowulf begins and ends with funerals and includes the third as a digression part way through. Now, for the first time, a fourth funeral (hitherto disguised as poetic imagery) is identified from archaeological evidence. A detailed analysis of the four funerals establishes their thematic and structural importance, revealing them as pillars around which the poem is built. The poet is revealed as a literate antiquarian of considerable structural skill; one who explores feminist issues, plays with numbers and enjoys a pun; who establishes an ideal then probes its darker side. The author's unique knowledge of Anglo-Saxon culture provides constant surprises and enlightenment. This book will be invaluable to all students of the poem for its fresh and detailed reading, its identification of a coherent structure and its establishment of the integrity of the surviving texts. ;
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2025Through the fiction of Phebe Gibbes (1764–90)
Women, alienation, and prodigality in the long eighteenth century
by Kathryn Freeman
Through the Fiction of Phebe Gibbes places this prolific, newly recovered English writer at the centre of the revolutionary period. Gibbes's novels mark the struggles of women for agency in an expanding British empire, from the Seven Years' War to revolutions in American, Haiti and France. With Gibbes as a nexus in a lineage of women writers from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen, Kathryn S. Freeman offers a valuable perspective on the 'long eighteenth century', with Gibbes' own evolution mirroring that of the larger period. The study traces the development of Gibbes' authorial voice from satire to irony through a range of female characters subverting patriarchal oppression. Freeman guides the reader through patterns of narrative voice, concerns with gender and sexuality, and elements of wordplay through detailed discussion of five novels representing Gibbes' evolving representation of a subversive female subjectivity.
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Children's & YAThe Candy Guild (1). The Magic Pact
by Tanja Voosen/ Viktoria Gavrilenko
The most magical adventure since the discovery of chocolate! Do you believe in magic and miracles? Everyone in the little town of Belony takes magic and miracles for granted – everyone except Elina, who thinks it’s all a load of nonsense. That is, until her nervous neighbour Charlie happens to get hold of a bar of chocolate that has a very strange effect on her. Suddenly Elina is convinced that Charlie has fallen under a spell. Of all people, it’s shy Robin who comes to the girl’s rescue. He is a member of a Candy Guild family – people who have the ability to create magic sweets that will help others. This is how he knows that only the mysterious Candy Guild can lift the curse on Charlie. With a suitcase full of magic sweets, the three of them set out on a dangerous quest. Because not everyone keeps to the pact that magic sweets should only be used to do good… The Candy Guild. The Magic Pact is the first in a new series of magic-fantasy books for children of 9+ - as enchanting as chocolate and as wild as a Christmas cracker!
