Books in Columbia Critical Guides series

This Columbia Critical Guide starts with extracts from Melville's own letters and essays and from early reviews of Moby-Dick that set the terms for later critical evaluations. Subsequent chapters deal with the "Melville Revival" of the 1920s and the novel's central place in the establishment, growth, and reassessment of American Studies in the 1940s and 1950s. The final chapters examine postmodern New Americanist readings of the text, and how these provide new models for thinking about American culture.

More critical writing exists on The Great Gatsby than on any other work of American fiction. This Columbia Critical Guide introduces and contextualizes the key critical debates surrounding Fitzgerald's novel. The extracts and essays included here reflect The Great Gatsby's place as one of the first American novels to make significant use of modernist techniques and explore the influence of this "Lost Generation" work on later American writings. In considering secondary sources from the twenties to the present, this smart and sophisticated study guide offers readers an invaluable resource on this complex rendering of a moment in American history.

This Columbia Critical Guide steers a clear path through the huge body of critical material on Richard II that has accrued over the past three centuries, elucidating the play's reception by audiences, critics, and scholars since its first production. Beginning with a discussion of early commentaries, the book presents and addresses the most significant critical arguments to give the reader a clear understanding of the ways in which each generation has sought to invest Richard II with new meaning. The final section considers the radical new reading of Shakespeare's work provided by contemporary critics.

This Columbia Critical Guide starts with extracts from Melville's own letters and essays and from early reviews of Moby-Dick that set the terms for later critical evaluations. Subsequent chapters deal with the "Melville Revival" of the 1920s and the novel's central place in the establishment, growth, and reassessment of American Studies in the 1940s and 1950s. The final chapters examine postmodern New Americanist readings of the text, and how these provide new models for thinking about American culture.