"When H.G. Wells left school in 1880 at the age of thirteen he looked destined for obscurity. Defying expectations, he went on to become one of the most famous writers in the world, remaining active into the era of the atomic bomb, which he had predicted thirty years earlier. Along the way he created classic science-fiction tales such as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, reinvented the Dickensian novel in Kipps and The...

Though he never published any of his English poems during his lifetime, George Herbert (1593-1633) is recognized as possibly the greatest religious poet in the language. Few English poets of his age still inspire such intense devotion today. In this richly perceptive biography, John Drury for the first time integrates Herbert's poems fully into his life, enriching our understanding of both the poet's mind and his work. --from publisher description...

Follows a scientist who uses his time machine to journey into the future, where he finds the world with two human races, the peaceful Eloi and the violent Morlocks.

In any time or place literature is often influenced by concepts such as politics, society, philosophy, and in the true Puritan and Anglican fashion, spirituality and the Bible. It is this influence which Edward Dowden has cleverly critiqued. In his foreword, he writes, "Literature, however, and especially what is most valuable in the seventeenth-century cannot be studied without reference to the history of religion." Which is why, although the seventeenth-century...

Presents full-text literary criticism on writers and illustrators for children and young adults. Critical essays are selected from leading sources, including published journals, magazines, books, monographs, reviews, and scholarly papers.