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The Review of English Studies, published by Oxford University Press

Finding Jane Austen in history

In the anniversary year marking 100 years since the publication of R. W. Chapman’s OUP edition of “The Novels of Jane Austen”, Kathryn Sutherland (Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts, OUP 2018) examines the call to reassess the contribution made to the edition by Chapman’s wife, Katharine Metcalfe.

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Scottish Poetry, 1730-18-30, edited by Daniel Cook - Oxford World's Classics, OUP

After Burns: recovering Scottish poetry

Scottish poetry produced in the long eighteenth century might strike you as at once familiar and unknown. Hundreds of poets, balladists, and songwriters born or raised in Scotland throughout the long eighteenth century need to find new readerships.

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Is Sheridan Le Fanu's "Uncle Silas" an Irish novel? Claire Connolly, editor of "Uncle Silas" (OUP, 2022) explores the question in this OUPblog post.

Is Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas an Irish novel?

When Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Uncle Silas” appeared in 1864, its author was best known as the proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and a writer of Irish historical novels. Yet, as advised by his publisher, Le Fanu had produced a work of fiction situated not in the Irish past but the English present.

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A Winter Breviary by Rebecca Gayle Howell and Reena Esmail

A Winter Breviary: Q&A with poet Rebecca Gayle Howell

A Winter Breviary is a triptych of carols that tells the story of a person walking in the woods on solstice night. This pilgrim—she, he, they—searches for hope, the hope they cannot name, or hear or see. And still, they walk deeper and deeper into the dark.

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Nine literary New Year’s resolutions

Do you need some inspiration for your New Year’s resolutions? If you’re in a resolution rut and feeling some of that winter gloom, then you’re not alone. To help you on your way to an exciting start to 2017, we’ve enlisted the help of some of history’s greatest literary and philosophical figures–on their own resolutions, and inspiring thoughts for the New Year.

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Moby Dick Oxford World's Classics

Weird Moby-Dick

There are a lot of peculiar phrases in Moby-Dick. My new introduction to the second Oxford World’s Classics edition of Herman Melville’s novel highlights the startling weirdness of the book, both in its literary form and its language.

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East of the Wardrobe

Everyday Narnia: the language of another world

There is little doubt that “Narnia” has effectively entered the English language and that references to a “wardrobe” or “wardrobe door” have been given additional meanings by C. S. Lewis: any reference to it requires no explanation simply because everyone knows.

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Democracies in America: Keywords for the Nineteenth Century and Today

Defining “democracy”

One week before the 2022 US midterm elections, President Joseph Biden delivered a prime-time address at Union Station in Washington, DC. Biden suggested that something foundational, fundamental, was at stake. He reminded listeners of the definition of democracy.

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