Seed, David

Handling of Words and Other Studies in Literary Psychology

1993 0-7734-9174-0
The republication of the 1923 study The Handling of Words will help to confirm Vernon Lee's pioneering work in helping to design the method of close empirical analysis of texts which has become so important in Anglo-American criticism. It also makes available passages of stylistic analysis whose value has been partially recognized by their inclusion on some anthologies. Finally, it will show how strikingly Lee anticipates some of the developments in contemporary criticism, for instance the role of the reader as co-creator.

Rudolph Wurlitzer, American Novelist and Screenwriter

1992 0-7734-9643-2
This study gives a novel-by-novel analysis of Wurlitzer's works, relating his fiction to the writings of the Beats, Beckett, and other influences. Each of his novels centers around a literal or metaphorical West where the cultural bearings of the protagonists are brought under pressure, returning again and again to issues of cultural breakdown and isolation. A separate chapter is devoted to his work for the cinema and the strong continuity between his `road movies' and his fiction. This is the first critical study of Wurlitzer's work and has been prepared with the help of the novelist himself.