Relating literature to topics such as dreams, politics, life, death, the ordinary and the uncanny, This Thing Called Literature establishes a sense of why and how literature is an exciting and rewarding subject to study. Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle expertly weave an essential love of literature into an account of what literary texts do, how they work and the sort of questions and ideas they provoke.

The book’s three parts reflect the fundamental components of studying literature: reading, thinking and writing. The authors use helpful and wide-ranging examples and summaries, offering rich reflections on the question ‘What is literature?’ and on what they term ‘creative reading’. The new edition has been revised throughout with extensive updates to the further reading and a new chapter on creative non-fiction.

Bennett and Royle’s accessible and thought-provoking style encourages a deep engagement with literary texts. This essential guide to the study of literature is an eloquent celebration of the value and pleasure of reading.

About the Author

Andrew Bennett is Professor of English at the University of Bristol, UK. He publishes on Romantic and twentieth-century literature and on literary theory. His books include An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory, Sixth Edition (2023; with Nicholas Royle), Suicide Century: Literature and Suicide from James Joyce to David Foster Wallace (2017) and Ignorance: Literature and Agnoiology (2009).

Nicholas Royle is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of many critical books, including How to Read Shakespeare (2014) and Veering: A Theory of Literature (2011), as well as creative works such as An English Guide to Birdwatching (2017) and David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine (2023).

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