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Easy to use in the classroom or as a tool for revision, Oxford Literature Companions provide student-friendly analysis of a range of popular A Level set texts. Each book offers a lively, engaging approach to the text, covering characterisation and role, genre, context, language, themes, structure, performance and critical views, whilst also providing a range of varied and in-depth activities to deepen understanding and encourage close work wtih the text. Each book also includes a comprehensive Skills and Practice section, which provides detailed advice on assessment and a bank of exam-style questions and annotated sample student answers. This guide covers Hamlet by William Shakespeare, is suitable for all exam boards and for the most recent AS/A level specifications.

For centuries John Milton, author of "Paradise Lost" and many other poetic works, and of radical pamphlets on free speech, divorce and political rights, has emerged from biographies as a woman-hating domestic tyrant or a saintly blind man. But, as Anna Beer shows, his personal life was just as rich and complex as his professional one. By close and groundbreaking analysis of Milton's careful editing of his own life, his wider family's affairs, the records of his government work, and the history of England during one of its most tumultuous periods of social and cultural life, Beer brings both the poet and his period to vivid life.

Margery Kempe. Aemilia Lanyer. Aphra Behn. Lady Mary. Jane Austen. Warned not to write – and certainly not to bite – these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history. ‘Smart, funny and highly readable... a tour de force.’ A.L. Kennedy Ever since Sappho first put stylus to papyrus, women who write have been labelled mad, undisciplined and dangerous. Funny and provocative, Eve Bites Back offers an alternative history of English literature. Placing the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton centre stage, Anna Beer builds a vibrant new canon through Restoration wits, scandalous sensation novelists and medieval mystics. Delving into the lives and work of eight pioneers – Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Beer uncovers the struggles and triumphs of these gamechangers, ground-breakers and genre-makers.

Margery Kempe. Aemilia Lanyer. Aphra Behn. Lady Mary. Jane Austen. Warned not to write – and certainly not to bite – these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history. ‘Smart, funny and highly readable... a tour de force.’ A.L. Kennedy Ever since Sappho first put stylus to papyrus, women who write have been labelled mad, undisciplined and dangerous. Funny and provocative, Eve Bites Back offers an alternative history of English literature. Placing the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton centre stage, Anna Beer builds a vibrant new canon through Restoration wits, scandalous sensation novelists and medieval mystics. Delving into the lives and work of eight pioneers – Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Beer uncovers the struggles and triumphs of these gamechangers, ground-breakers and genre-makers.

Discover an invigorating new perspective on the life and work of William Shakespeare The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering readers a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family, and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself. The book is written using scholarly citations and references, but with an approachable style suitable for readers with little or no background knowledge of Shakespeare or the era in which he lived. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare asks provocative questions about the playwright-poet’s preoccupation with gender roles and sexuality, and explores why it is so challenging to ascertain his political and religious allegiances. Conservative or radical? Misogynist or proto-feminist? A lover of men or women or both? Patriot or xenophobe? This introduction to Shakespeare’s life and works offers no simple answers, but recognizes a man intensely responsive to the world around him, a playwright willing and able to collaborate with others and able to collaborate with others, and, of course, his exceptional, perhaps unique, contribution to literature in English. The book covers the entirety of William Shakespeare’s life (1564-1616), taking him from his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to his success in the theatre world of London and then back to his home town and comfortable retirement. The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare sets his achievement as a writer within the dangerous, vibrant cultural world that was Elizabethan and Jacobean England, revealing a writer’s life of frequent collaboration, occasional crisis, but always of profound creativity. Perfect for undergraduate students in Literature, Drama, Theatre Studies, History, and Cultural Studies courses, The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare will also earn a place in the libraries of students interested in Gender Studies and Creative Writing.

The hidden history of the women who dared to write music in a man’s world. ‘Lucid, engaging and exuberant... [Sounds and Sweet Airs] is terrifically enjoyable and accessible, and leaves one hankering for a second volume.’ The Sunday Times Francesca Caccini. Barbara Strozzi. Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. Marianna Martines. Fanny Hensel. Clara Schumann. Lili Boulanger. Elizabeth Maconchy. Since the birth of classical music, women who dared compose have faced a bitter struggle to be heard. In spite of this, female composers continued to create, inspire and challenge. Yet even today so much of their work languishes unheard. Anna Beer reveals the highs and lows experienced by eight composers across the centuries, from Renaissance Florence to twentieth-century London, restoring to their rightful place exceptional women whom history has forgotten.

A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year A writer, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer, Sir Walter Ralegh lived more lives than most in his own time, in any time. The fifth son of a Devonshire gentleman, he rose to become Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, only to be charged with treason by her successor. Less than a year after the death of his Queen, Ralegh was in the Tower, watching as the scene was set for his own execution. Patriot or Traitor is the dramatic story of his rise and fall.

A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year A writer, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer, Sir Walter Ralegh lived more lives than most in his own time, in any time. The fifth son of a Devonshire gentleman, he rose to become Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, only to be charged with treason by her successor. Less than a year after the death of his Queen, Ralegh was in the Tower, watching as the scene was set for his own execution. Patriot or Traitor is the dramatic story of his rise and fall.

A quest for a valuable manuscript turns into a hunt for its author’s killer. Meet Oxford’s Eve Brook, literary detective, as she tackles her first mystery. David Morrow, Oxford don and controversial media pundit, is found dead in his college rooms. Eve Brook is recruited to complete his latest book, a dazzling takedown of "woke" history. But the manuscript is missing, and everyone Eve meets seems to have something to hide—and a reason to want Morrow dead. Set against the backdrop of Oxford’s colleges, long train rides, quaint villages, and a tantalising cast of suspects, Death of an Englishman is—at first glance—a traditional murder mystery. But this is cosy crime with a very contemporary edge…