This book explores in detail the novels written by Emyr Humphreys during a timespan of over fifty years, from his first, A Little Kingdom, published in 1946, to The Gift of a Daughter, published in 1998. An early chapter comprises a literary biography with the following chapters devoted to: the early novels including A Toy Epic; a separate examination of Outside the House of Baal, considered by many to be his finest achievement; his use of Celtic myth as a patterning device; similarly his use of Welsh history is covered in 2 chapters; and finally his use of various postcolonial strategies. It also contains an extensive bibliography of work by and about Emyr Humphreys.

For over half a century, Emyr Humphreys’s work as a novelist, short story writer, poet, dramatist and television producer has been extraordinarily impressive. This pioneering and stimulating book considers Humphreys’s fiction from a range of contemporary critical perspectives and stresses its relevance to the 21st century. Drawing on the work of leading modern cultural and literary theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Homi Bhabha, psychoanalytic critics such as Melanie Klein and Jacqueline Rose, and gender theorists such as Judith Butler, Linden Peach brings fresh perspectives to the content, structure and developing nature of Humphreys’s work, employing, for example, historicist, post-historicist, new geography, psychoanalytic and feminist and postfeminist frameworks. Through detailed readings which highlight subjects such as gender identity, contested masculinities, war, pacifism, strangeness and ‘otherness’, problematic father and daughter relationships, and cultural discourse in complex linguistic environments, Peach suggests that Humphreys’s work is best understood as ‘dramatic’, ‘dissident’ and/or ‘dilemma’ fiction rather than by the term ‘Protestant novelist’ which Humphreys used to describe himself at the outset of his career. Stressing how Humphreys came to see himself as more of a ‘protesting’ novelist, Peach examines how the dilemmas around which his fiction is based, originally linked to Humphreys’s definition of himself as a ‘protestant’ writer, increasingly become sites in which controversial, and often dark themes, are explored. This approach to Humphreys’s work is pursued through exciting readings of some of Humphreys best and lesser known works including A Man’s Estate, A Toy Epic, Outside the House of Baal, the Best of Friends, salt of the Earth, Unconditional Surrender, The Gift of a Daughter, Natives, Ghosts and Strangers, Old people are a Problem, The shop and The Woman at the Window.

When one looks at the history of English Studies there has been a noticeable proliferation of research interests since the 1970s. As a result of such development, attempts have been made to create a new basis for communication and cooperation inside Anglistics and across disciplines. Making a case for a Dialogic Anglistics is such an attempt. A Dialogic Anglistics is based on a normative concept of dialogue aiming for egalitarian forms of cooperation both inside, between and across disciplines leading to the redefinition of old and creation of manifold new directions for English Studies. In the nineteen articles presented in this volume dialogic encounters are encouraged both within and between different fields within Anglistics. Furthermore, dialogic links are created with colleagues from other academic disciplines.

Analyzes the complex role receptions of antiquity had in forging nationalist ideology and literary modernism in Ireland, Scotland and Wales.