Browse Results

Select your format based upon: 1) how you want to read your book, and 2) compatibility with your reading tool. To learn more about using Bookshare with your device, visit the Help Center.

Here is an overview of the specialized formats that Bookshare offers its members with links that go to the Help Center for more information.

• Bookshare Web Reader - A customized reading tool for Bookshare members offering all the features of DAISY with a single click of the "Read Now" link.
• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - A digital book file format. DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with Images’.
• BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - Digital Braille for use with refreshable Braille devices and Braille embossers.
• MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) - Provides audio only with no text. These books are created with a text-to-speech engine and spoken by Kendra, a high quality synthetic voice from Ivona. Any device that supports MP3 playback is compatible.
• DAISY Audio - Similar to the DAISY option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.
• EPUB - A standard e-book format that can be read on many tools, such as iBooks, Readium or others.
• Word - Accessible Word output, which can be unzipped and opened in any tool that allows .docx files

“Voi Altri Pochi”: Ezra Pound and his Audience, 1908–1925 (International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature)

Critical tradition has established a certain way of reading Ezra Pound, one that places the meanings of the words on the page at the centre of interest and neglects poetic communication. The present study contributes to the recent challenge to this critical orthodoxy, which has led to his canonization as a "difficult" poet, by investigating the pragmatic dimension of Pound's work. In its effort to reconstruct the dynamic communicative interface between Pound and his audiences in the early period of his career (1908-1925), this study draws on relevance theory, a recent sharpening in pragmatic theory, not so much to produce a "new" reading of his poetry, but to suggest how Pound became difficult: it is argued that the relative success and failure of his poetry to enhance cognitive and civic renewal depended on the dialectic between his presumptions of audience and the interpretive expectations and skills of his actual historical readers.

Voicing America: Language, Literary Form, and the Origins of the United States

How is a nation brought into being? In a detailed examination of crucial texts of eighteenth-century American literature, Christopher Looby argues that the United States was self-consciously enacted through the spoken word. Historical material informs and animates theoretical texts by Derrida, Lacan, and others as Looby unravels the texts of Benjamin Franklin, Charles Brockden Brown, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge and connects them to nation-building, political discourse, and self-creation. Correcting the strong emphasis on the importance of print culture in eighteenth-century America, Voicing America uncovers the complex process of early American writers articulating their new nation and reveals a body of literature and a political discourse thoroughly concerned with the power of vocal language.

Walt Whitman: A glorious collection from one of America’s best-loved and controversial poets (The Great Poets)

From the highly controversial Leaves of Grass, with its overt sexual imagery and delight of sensual pleasures, to the iconic Captain, oh my captain immortalised in the film Dead Poets Society, this short collection is the ideal introduction to the poetry of Walt Whitman.One of the greats, he was celebrated both during his lifetime and ever since - he is widely considered to be the father of free verse. During the American Civil War he worked in hospitals caring for the wounded, and his own funeral in 1892 was a public event.In the words of the modernist poet Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman was 'America's poet . . . he is America'.

The Wellspring: Poems (Cape Poetry Ser.)

Over the last five years, Sharon Olds' poetry has become widely read and celebrated in Britain. Frank and exhilarating, sensual and profound, the poems stare, unblinking, at sex and death and love - showing these things to us in all their raw beauty.This striking new collection is a sequence of poems that reaches into the very wellspring of life. The poems take us back to the womb, to childhood, to a searing sexual awakening, to the shock of birth, the wonder and humour of parenthood - and finally to the depths of adult love.Always bold, musical and honest, The Wellspring plunges us into the essence of experience. This is a highly charged, sinuous, passionate book from one of the finest poets writing today.

Welt und Gegen-Welt in Jean Pauls "Titan"

What Is Pastoral?

One of the enduring traditions of Western literary history, pastoral is often mischaracterized as a catchall for literature about rural themes and nature in general. In What Is Pastoral?, distinguished literary historian Paul Alpers argues that pastoral is based upon a fundamental fiction—that the lives of shepherds or other socially humble figures represent the lives of human beings in general. Ranging from Virgil's Eclogues to Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs, from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Hardy and Frost, this work brings the story of the pastoral tradition, previously limited to classical and Renaissance literature, into the twentieth century. Pastoral reemerges in this account not as a vehicle of nostalgia for some Golden Age, nor of escape to idyllic landscapes, but as a mode bearing witness to the possibilities and problems of human community and shared experience in the real world. A rich and engrossing book, What Is Pastoral? will soon take its place as the definitive study of pastoral literature. "Alpers succeeds brilliantly. . . . [He] offers . . . a wealth of new insight into the origins, development, and flowering of the pastoral."—Ann-Maria Contarino, Renaissance Quarterly

Wie international ist die Literaturwissenschaft?: Methoden- und Theoriediskussion in den Literaturwissenschaften: Kulturelle Besonderheiten und interkultureller Austausch am Beispiel des Interpretationsproblems (1950-1990)

Die Autoren dieses Bandes beschäftigen sich mit drei philologischen Problemkreisen: Der Universalisierung des Wissenstransfers und der Aufhebung ursprünglich nationaler Konzepte der Philologien, mit den sich daraus ergebenden Schwierigkeiten und Verwerfungen, welche die gegenwärtigen Diskussionen bestimmten und den Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten einer transdisziplinären Kulturwissenschaft.

Willa Cather in Context: Progress, Race, Empire

Drawing on a range of material from archives in the USA and from a variety of primary historical sources, this study places Cather's major fiction in its cultural context. Reynolds explores 'progressivism', 'primitivism' and 'Americanization' in such novels as My Antonia and O Pioneers! Willa Cather in Context develops interdisciplinary readings of this important Nebraskan novelist, placing her as a writer actively engaged with many of the key debates of early twentieth-century America, from immigration to evolutionary theory.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume III - Thackeray by Anthony Trollope (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This third volume contains Anthony Trollope’s volume on Thackeray from John Morley’s series entitled The English Men of Letters. The work signifies Thackeray’s move to perceived respectability, placing him as part of the literary establishment, alongside writers such as Spenser, Johnson, Milton, Chaucer, Pope and Wordsworth. The introduction by Richard Pearson outlines the context in which the volume was written and received, including Trollope and Thackeray’s relationship and the book’s critical reception. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume II - Early Travel Writings (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. William Makepeace Thackeray spent part of virtually every year of his writing life in Paris and he wrote continually on France and French culture. This volume contains a selection of Thackeray’s travel writing, the majority of which centres around his time spent in France, with the addition of some writing on his travels to Germany and America. With an explanatory introduction by Richard Pearson, this book reveals some of Thackeray’s lesser-known work which would later inform his novels. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century travel writing and literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume II - Early Travel Writings (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. William Makepeace Thackeray spent part of virtually every year of his writing life in Paris and he wrote continually on France and French culture. This volume contains a selection of Thackeray’s travel writing, the majority of which centres around his time spent in France, with the addition of some writing on his travels to Germany and America. With an explanatory introduction by Richard Pearson, this book reveals some of Thackeray’s lesser-known work which would later inform his novels. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century travel writing and literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume IV - The Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray by Charles Plumptre Johnson & Thackeray: A Study by Adolphus Alfred Jack (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This fourth volume contains Charles Plumptre Johnson’s The Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray and Adolphus Alfred Jack’s Thackeray: A Study. While Johnson’s work signifies a landmark in Thackeray scholarship, recognizing his lesser-known work for magazines and newspapers, A. A. Jack’s text marks a major reassessment of Thackeray’s work in light of the debate on the moral intentionality of fiction. Richard Pearson’s introduction guides the reader through the context of each publication, providing a helpful explanation of how and why these works were written. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume IV - The Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray by Charles Plumptre Johnson & Thackeray: A Study by Adolphus Alfred Jack (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This fourth volume contains Charles Plumptre Johnson’s The Early Writings of William Makepeace Thackeray and Adolphus Alfred Jack’s Thackeray: A Study. While Johnson’s work signifies a landmark in Thackeray scholarship, recognizing his lesser-known work for magazines and newspapers, A. A. Jack’s text marks a major reassessment of Thackeray’s work in light of the debate on the moral intentionality of fiction. Richard Pearson’s introduction guides the reader through the context of each publication, providing a helpful explanation of how and why these works were written. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume VI - The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray by Lewis Melville (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This sixth volume contains the work of Lewis Melville, one of the most productive biographers and critics of Thackeray at the turn of the 20th century. Richard Pearson’s helpful introduction not only provides additional information on the biographer himself, but also analyses the text and tracks its development over time. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume III - Thackeray by Anthony Trollope (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This third volume contains Anthony Trollope’s volume on Thackeray from John Morley’s series entitled The English Men of Letters. The work signifies Thackeray’s move to perceived respectability, placing him as part of the literary establishment, alongside writers such as Spenser, Johnson, Milton, Chaucer, Pope and Wordsworth. The introduction by Richard Pearson outlines the context in which the volume was written and received, including Trollope and Thackeray’s relationship and the book’s critical reception. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume VI - The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray by Lewis Melville (Routledge Revivals: The William Makepeace Thackeray Library)

First published in 1996, The William Makepeace Thackeray Library is a collection of works written by and about the novelist. This sixth volume contains the work of Lewis Melville, one of the most productive biographers and critics of Thackeray at the turn of the 20th century. Richard Pearson’s helpful introduction not only provides additional information on the biographer himself, but also analyses the text and tracks its development over time. This book will be of interest to those studying Thackeray and nineteenth-century literature.

William Shakespeare

Written for performance, Shakespeare's plays are very different texts from any intended for a reader with book in hand and they require a different kind of attention. John Russell Brown's latest book attempts a description of Shakespeare's distinctive practice as a writer for the stage and, in doing so, suggests ways of responding to the plays which bring them alive in the mind as if in performance. It is a book for use, to quicken both eye and ear while reading the texts and to enliven almost any critical debate.

William Wordsworth: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)

In William Wordsworth, John Williams provides a detailed account of Wordsworth's evolution as a poet. This includes his earliest known writing while a pupil at Hawkshead Grammar School, and his later poetry, often virtually ignored by critics. Wordsworth's ambivalent attitude towards seeking out a public readership beyond his immediate circle of friends and admirers is a central concern of the book. This involves an assessment of the poet's shifting sense of his political allegiances alongside the pressures of personal relationships and circumstances.

The Wind in the Willows

'Believe me, my young friend, there is absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In them or out of them, it doesn't matter. Whether you get away or you don't, whether you arrive at your destination or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy.'Ever since the publication of Kenneth Grahame's novel in 1908, the characters of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger have delighted generations of readers. Now Alan Bennett has written an adaptation for the stage, a version which is both true to the original and yet carries that distinctive Bennett hallmark.Alan Bennett introduces this edition, writing about the history of the project and the staging of the production.'Bennett is even able to inject the odd sly joke for the adult without bewildering the tots... the result is a delightful evening, a treat for anyone.' The Times

The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations

'Diane Purkiss ... insists on taking witches seriously. Her refusal to write witch-believers off as unenlightened has produced some richly intelligent meditations on their -- and our -- world.' - The Observer'An invigorating and challenging book ... sets many hares running.' - The Times Higher Education Supplement

The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations

'Diane Purkiss ... insists on taking witches seriously. Her refusal to write witch-believers off as unenlightened has produced some richly intelligent meditations on their -- and our -- world.' - The Observer'An invigorating and challenging book ... sets many hares running.' - The Times Higher Education Supplement

Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review "Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance

Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review "Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance

Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review "Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance

Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary

Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review "Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance