Master of the Rings: Inside the World of JRR Tolkien
Susan Ang
J.R.R Tolkien is the greatest fantasy writer ever to have lived. He has millions of devoted readers worldwide, and over 100 million copies of his books have been sold. And now he has a new legion of fans, thanks to the film versions ofThe Lord of the Rings.
The Master of the Rings takes a look at the man himself, where he came from, what influenced his writing, and the themes that unite his major works,The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There’s also a detailed guide to who’s who, what’s what and where’s where in Middle-earth, and a unique look at the historical background toThe Lord of the Rings. This is the perfect companion to Tolkien’s stories.
Dr Susan Ang is the author ofThe Widening World of Children’s Literature. She has also contributed articles on children’s literature to Encarta andThe Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English, among which are entries on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis,The Hobbit andThe Chronicles of Narnia. Dr Ang is a lecturer with the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, whose teaching lies mainly in the areas of nineteenth-century literature, science fiction and gothic.
Shakespearean Afterlives: Ten Characters with a Life of their Own
John O'ConnorBen Jonson’s famous observation that Shakespeare was ‘not of an age, but for all time’ has proved to be spectacularly true. From art to advertising, psychology to politics, opera to cinema, Shakespeare’s stories and characters have found an enduring place in our consciousness, enjoying ‘afterlives’ as rich and varied as their original incarnations in the playhouse.
Shakespearean Afterlives is a cultural biography of Shakespeare’s most famous characters. From Shylock to the Shrew, Richard the Third to Romeo, it charts the many and various existences that these characters have led outside the pages of the First Folio.
Each chapter offers an original perspective on a well-known character, examining their role in the play, their history in performance and their intriguingly kaleidoscopic life in the popular consciousness. Episodes from the character’s performance history show how audience perceptions have changed through the centuries; and a broader perspective reveals the new and often unlikely afterlives that the character has enjoyed in a wide variety of cultural fields.
Featuring interviews with experienced actors and directors including Derek Jacobi, Sinead Cusack, Mark Rylance and others this book is for ‘the great Variety of Readers’ who enjoy their Shakespeare and are intrigued by the seemingly endless capacity of his characters for re-invention and reincarnation.
John O'Connor is the editor of the prestigiousLongman Shakespeare series, is married with three children and lives just outsideOxford.
Love and Longing: A collection of classic poetry and proseIntroduced by Jacqueline Wilson
Edited by Kate Agnew
Wizard is proud to introduce a collection of classic poetry and prose extracts based around the enduring themes of love and romance, with an introduction by prize-winning children’s author
Jacqueline Wilson.An attractive blend of the familiar and the novel, Love and Longing will include poetry from the “Romantics” – Hardy, Milton, Austen, Bronte – as well as Ovid, Catullus and less well-known authors. Connecting to teenagers’ “romantic streak”, the anthology will also appeal to adults – teachers as well as parents – who will approve of the classic content. It is published at the same time as
Fear and Trembling, a collection of classic extracts on horror, haunting and the macabre.
All royalties from these books will go to a children’s charity. Further details of which charity will be available shortly.
Jacqueline Wilson
is one of Britain's best-loved children's authors and has sold over 10 million books in the UK alone, winning countless awards in the process. Four of her books made the BBC's recent Big Read Top 100 and she is the most borrowed children's author in the country's libraries. In June 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools.
Kate Agnew has chaired the Children's Booksellers Association and has served as a judge for the Smarties Award and Whitbread Prize. She was a contributor to the Cambridge Guide to Children's Books, co-editedChildren at War with Geoff Fox and has recently edited a series of short-story collections for Egmont. In 1999 she won a special British Book Award for her contribution to the National Year of Reading.
