Emer O'Sullivan

"A first-ever biography of Oscar Wilde that places him within the context of his family and social and historical milieu finally tells the whole story of one of the most prominent characters of the late 19th century whose trial for indecency heralded decadence's demise - and his own, "--NoveList.

Oscar Wilde and His Family

The Fall of the House of Wilde

Oscar Wilde owed his most outstanding characteristics - his precocious intellectualism, his flamboyance, his hedonism, his recklessness, his pride, his sense of superiority, his liberal sexual values - to his parents. Oscar's mother, Lady Jane Wilde, rose to prominence as a political journalist, advocating in 1848 a rebellion against colonialism. Proud, involved and challenging, she became a salon hostess and opened the Wilde's Dublin home at No. 1 Merrion Square to the public. Known as the most scintillating and stirring hostess of her day, she passed on her infectious delight in the art of living to Oscar, who imbibed it greedily. His father was Sir William Wilde, one of the most eminent men of his generation. Acutely conscious of injustices in the social order, Sir William laid the foundations for the Celtic renaissance in the belief that culture would establish a common ground between the privileged and the poor, Protestant and Catholic. But Sir William was also a philanderer, and when he stood accused of sexually assaulting a young female patient, the scandal and trial sent shock waves through Dublin society. After his death the Wildes moved to London where Oscar burst irrepressibly upon the scene. The one role that didn't suit him was that of the Victorian husband, as his wife, Constance, was to discover. For beneath the swelling forehead was a self-destructive itch: a lifelong devourer of attention, Oscar was unable to recognise when the party was over. The Fall of the House of Wilde for the first time places Oscar Wilde as a member of one of the most dazzling Anglo-Irish families of Victorian times, and also in the broader social, political and religious context. A remarkable and perceptive account, this is a major repositioning of our first modern celebrity, a man whose own fall from grace in a trial as public as his father's marked the end of fin de siècle decadence.

Born in 1806, Elizabeth Barrett Browning may be best known today for love sonnets such as 'How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways' and her romance with Robert Browning. But in her lifetime she was one of Britain's most revered poets – for her poems on social injustice, not love – and was far more celebrated than her husband. Her circle included John Ruskin and Georges Sand, while Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and George Eliot were great admirers. Although her family owned slave plantations in the West Indies, she was an ardent abolitionist, anti-colonialist and republican. She wrote poems about child labour and runaway slaves – and in her verse novel Aurora Leigh created an innovative masterpiece of feminist writing. Yet privately, she submitted for decades to her father's oppressive will. Finally escaping, she married in secret and moved to Italy in 1846, her father cutting all ties with her. But in Robert Browning she found someone who devoted himself to her and to her work. In The Rebellion of a Dutiful Daughter, Emer O'Sullivan brilliantly charts the conflicted life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who not only blazed a trail in modernising poetry but reshaped the role that women could play in society, ensuring that she remains as relevant today as she was then.

The Conflicted Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Rebellion of a Dutiful Daughter

Historical Ditionary of Children's Literature, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about children's literature.

Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature

WINNER OF THE 2007 CHLA BOOK AWARD! Children's literature has transcended linguistic and cultural borders since books and magazines for young readers were first produced, with popular books translated throughout the world. Emer O'Sullivan traces the history of comparative children's literature studies, from the enthusiastic internationalism of the post-war period âe" which set out from the idea of a supra-national world republic of childhood âe" to modern comparative criticism. Drawing on the scholarship and children's literature of many cultures and languages, she outlines the constituent areas that structure the field, including contact and transfer studies, intertextuality studies, intermediality studies and image studies. In doing so, she provides the first comprehensive overview of this exciting new research area. Comparative Children's Literature also links the fields of narratology and translation studies, to develop an original and highly valuable communicative model of translation. Taking in issues of children's 'classics', the canon and world literature for children, Comparative Children's Literature reveals that this branch of literature is not as genuinely international as it is often fondly assumed to be and is essential reading for those interested in the consequences of globalization on children's literature and culture.

Comparative Children's Literature

Kimberley Reynolds

Rolf Romøren

Social and Aesthetic Perspectives

Children's Literature Global and Local

WINNER OF THE 2007 CHLA BOOK AWARD! Children's literature has transcended linguistic and cultural borders since books and magazines for young readers were first produced, with popular books translated throughout the world. Emer O'Sullivan traces the history of comparative children's literature studies, from the enthusiastic internationalism of the post-war period – which set out from the idea of a supra-national world republic of childhood – to modern comparative criticism. Drawing on the scholarship and children's literature of many cultures and languages, she outlines the constituent areas that structure the field, including contact and transfer studies, intertextuality studies, intermediality studies and image studies. In doing so, she provides the first comprehensive overview of this exciting new research area. Comparative Children's Literature also links the fields of narratology and translation studies, to develop an original and highly valuable communicative model of translation. Taking in issues of children's 'classics', the canon and world literature for children, Comparative Children's Literature reveals that this branch of literature is not as genuinely international as it is often fondly assumed to be and is essential reading for those interested in the consequences of globalization on children's literature and culture.

The Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature relates the history of children's literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, books, and genres.

Emer O'Sullivan

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