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The field of literature changed dramatically at the end of the eighteenth century, as under the shadow of Romanticism the novel became the most important literary genre of its day. Often neglected, the novels of the Romantic era puzzle critics yet are much more concerned with the unexpected, the unconventional, and the uncanny than their immediate predecessors or successors, and their authors include some of the most important novelists of British literary history—Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, James Hogg, Mary Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott among them. Featuring contributions from distinguished scholars in the field, Recognizing the Romantic Novel evaluates the vibrancy and centrality of the Romantic novel, showcasing the important new voices and directions in the field and showing it can hold its own in the canon of literary scholarship. “These essays offer us a lens through which we may recognize the Romantic novel as it has never been recognized before.”—Times Literary Supplement
Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics, and theorists of mass culture. They claim that romances enforce the woman reader's dependence on men and acceptance of the repressive ideology purveyed by popular culture. Radway questions such claims, arguing that critical attention "must shift from the text itself, taken in isolation, to the complex social event of reading." She examines that event, from the complicated business of publishing and distribution to the individual reader's engagement with the text. Radway's provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology. Asking readers themselves to explore their reading motives, habits, and rewards, she conducted interviews in a midwestern town with forty-two romance readers whom she met through Dorothy Evans, a chain bookstore employee who has earned a reputation as an expert on romantic fiction. Evans defends her customers' choice of entertainment; reading romances, she tells Radway, is no more harmful than watching sports on television. "We read books so we won't cry" is the poignant explanation one woman offers for her reading habit. Indeed, Radway found that while the women she studied devote themselves to nurturing their families, these wives and mothers receive insufficient devotion or nurturance in return. In romances the women find not only escape from the demanding and often tiresome routines of their lives but also a hero who supplies the tenderness and admiring attention that they have learned not to expect. The heroines admired by Radway's group defy the expected stereotypes; they are strong, independent, and intelligent. That such characters often find themselves to be victims of male aggression and almost always resign themselves to accepting conventional roles in life has less to do, Radway argues, with the women readers' fantasies and choices than with their need to deal with a fear of masculine dominance. These romance readers resent not only the limited choices in their own lives but the patronizing atitude that men especially express toward their reading tastes. In fact, women read romances both to protest and to escape temporarily the narrowly defined role prescribed for them by a patriarchal culture. Paradoxically, the books that they read make conventional roles for women seem desirable. It is this complex relationship between culture, text, and woman reader that Radway urges feminists to address. Romance readers, she argues, should be encouraged to deliver their protests in the arena of actual social relations rather than to act them out in the solitude of the imagination. In a new introduction, Janice Radway places the book within the context of current scholarship and offers both an explanation and critique of the study's limitations.
Winner of the Phillip H. McMath Award for prose In Mannequin and Wife, the debut story collection from Jen Fawkes, sharp and imaginative tales trip seamlessly across borderlands, navigating comedy and tragedy, psychological and magical realism, the mundane and the marvelous. Readers of these adventurous fictions will encounter a flock of stenographers, the strongest woman alive, a taxidermist with anger issues, an Elephant Girl, a fairy on her lunch break, and a married couple who live with a department store mannequin. Elsewhere, an American actor impersonates a code-breaking Britisher during World War II. A mother awaiting her son’s return discovers his personal ad soliciting the services of a cannibal (and fears the worst). A criminal mastermind’s protégé plots the destruction of Mount Rushmore from within an extinct volcano. A man buys a drive-in theater and transforms it into a carnival sideshow. And an attorney puzzles over how to leave someone his deceased client’s heart. Fawkes’s award-winning stories examine the vagaries of human relationships—mother and child, husband and wife, mentor and protégé—to tease out the startling complications that arise from our entanglements with those we loathe and those we love.
“One of the most anticipated YA debuts of 2018, Brightly Burning is a gothic, romantic mystery with hints of Jane Eyre, Marissa Meyer, and Kiera Cass.” —Entertainment Weekly “Brightly Burning delivers a brooding gothic mystery and a swoony romance, all set in space. Donne’s atmospheric, twisty update of a cherished classic will keep you up late into the night!” —Elly Blake, NYT bestselling author of the Frostblood Saga Stella Ainsley leaves poverty behind when she quits her engineering job aboard the Stalwart to become a governess on a private ship. On the Rochester, there’s no water ration, more books than one person could devour in a lifetime, and an AI who seems more friend than robot. But no one warned Stella that the ship seems to be haunted, nor that it may be involved in a conspiracy that could topple the entire interstellar fleet. Surrounded by mysteries, Stella finds her equal in the brooding but kind nineteen-year-old Captain Hugo. When several attempts on his life spark more questions than answers, and the beautiful Bianca Ingram appears at Hugo’s request, his unpredictable behavior causes Stella’s suspicions to mount. Without knowing who to trust, Stella must decide whether to follow her head or her heart. Alexa Donne’s lush and enthralling reimagining of the classic Jane Eyre, set among the stars, will seduce and beguile you.
From the internationally bestselling author of The Essex Serpent—soon to be an Apple TV+ Series “A beautiful, dream-like, unsettling narrative in which every word, like a small jewel, feels carefully chosen, considered and placed. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one.”—Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests Elegant, sinister and psychologically complex, After Me Comes the Flood is the haunting debut novel by Sarah Perry, the bestselling author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth. One hot summer’s day, John Cole decides to shut his bookshop early, and possibly forever, and drives out of London to see his brother. When his car breaks down on an isolated road, he goes looking for help and finds a dilapidated house. As he approaches, a laughing woman he’s never seen before walks out, addresses him by name and explains she’s been waiting for him. Entering the home, John discovers an enigmatic clan of residents all of whom seem to know who he is, and also claim they have been awaiting his arrival. They seem to be waiting for something else, too—something final.... Written before Sarah Perry’s ascension to an internationally bestselling author, After Me Comes the Flood is a spectacular novel of obsession, conviction, and providence.
An Entertainment Weekly Best Romance of Summer 2021! “This book gave me every last one of the Intense Romance Feelings I crave.” —New York Times bestselling author Talia Hibbert April French doesn't do relationships and she never asks for more. A long-standing regular at kink club Frankie's, she's kind of seen it all. As a trans woman, she’s used to being the scenic rest stop for others on their way to a happily-ever-after. She knows how desire works, and she keeps hers carefully boxed up to take out on weekends only. After all, you can't be let down if you never ask. Then Dennis Martin walks into Frankie's, fresh from Seattle and looking a little lost. April just meant to be friendly, but one flirtatious drink turns into one hot night. When Dennis asks for her number, she gives it to him. When he asks for her trust, well…that's a little harder. And when the desire she thought she had such a firm grip on comes alive with Dennis, April finds herself wanting passion, purpose and commitment. But when their relationship moves from complicated to impossible, April will have to decide how much she's willing to want. Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters. Discover a new Carina Adores book every month!
Essays by Sandra Brown, Jayne Ann Krentz, Mary Jo Putney, and other romance writers refute the myths and biases related to the romance genre and its readers.
Elizabeth Rosseau and Abigail Lester were best friends. At twenty-one, they confess their feelings for each other before leaving for winter break. It should have been a love story, only Abigail never came back. Six years later, Elizabeth contacts her one last time, and to her surprise, Abigail answers. Their chemistry is undeniable, but Abigail is hesitant to see her in person. She was in an accident that left her a monster, a wendigo. Now she’s in a support group for other inhuman cannibals and is mostly convinced that she could avoid eating Elizabeth, but Abigail doesn’t trust herself, and even more, she’s terrified that if Elizabeth finds out the truth, she’ll never want to see her again. They want nothing more than to be together, but they belong to different worlds, different lives, and different food groups.
This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of British Romantic literature and an authoritative guide to all aspects of the movement including its historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts, and its connections with the literature and thought of other countries. All the major Romantic writers are covered alongside lesser known writers.
What did Romantic writers mean when they wrote about "progress" and "perfection"? This book shows how Romantic writers inventively responded to familiar ideas about political progress which they inherited from the eighteenth century. Whereas earlier writers such as Voltaire and John Millar likened improvements in political institutions to the progress of the sciences or refinement of manners, the novelists, poets, and political theorists examined in this book reimagined politically progressive thinking in multiple genres. While embracing a commitment to optimistic improvement—increasing freedom, equality, and protection from injury—they also cultivated increasingly visible and volatile energies of religious and political dissent. Earlier narratives of progress tended not only to edit and fictionalize history but also to agglomerate different modes of knowledge and practice in their quest to describe and prescribe uniform cultural improvement. But romantic writers seize on internal division and take it less as an occasion for anxiety, exclusion, or erasure, and more as an impetus to rethink the groundwork of progress itself. Political entities, from Percy Shelley's plans for political reform to Charlotte Smith's motley associations of strangers in The Banished Man, are progressive because they advance some version of collective utility or common good. But they simultaneously stake a claim to progress only insofar as they paradoxically solicit contending vantage points on the criteria for the very public benefit which they passionately pursue. The "majestic edifices" of Wordsworth's imagined university in The Prelude embrace members who are "republican or pious," not to mention the recalcitrant "enthusiast" who is the poet himself.