‘Janiform Novels’ and other Literary Essays

by Cedric Watts

‘Janiform Novels’ and Other Literary Essays gathers 25 essays by Cedric Watts, MA, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English at Sussex University. Previously published in a diversity of magazines and books, these conveniently-gathered literary discussions deal with such authors as Sophocles, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Milton, Defoe, Richardson, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Conrad, Hemingway, Graham Greene, William Golding, Samuel Beckett and Chinua Achebe. Topics include covert plotting, the conceit of the conceit, the fallacies of structuralist and post-structuralist literary theory, delayed decoding, Shakespeare’s scepticism, Conrad’s opposition to racism and imperialism, Hemingway’s profoundly ambiguous style, and Lévi-Strauss’s ludicrous naivety. Cedric Watts’s critical writings have been described as ‘fearless’, ‘perceptive’, ‘provocative’, ‘incisive’ and ‘entertaining’ (Neil Sinyard, Graham Greene Newsletter).

298 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2016

About the author

Cedric Watts (1937 - 2022) was an English literary scholar. He served in the Royal Navy, took a B.A. at Cambridge University, and was an Emeritus Professor of English at Sussex University. He published twenty-six critical and scholarly books, including The Deceptive Test (1984) and Literature and Money (1990), and edited twenty-one plays by Shakespeare. His Final Exam: A Novel earned Ian McEwan's praise.

An internationally renowned and prolific scholar of the writings of Joseph Conrad, he played a leading role in Conrad studies as editor, critic and biographer.

Watts' biography of the Scottish writer, adventurer and friend of Conrad, R.B. Cunninghame Graham, rancher in South America, co-founder of the Scottish Labour Party and of the Scottish National Party, drew attention to an important but hitherto neglected figure, while his full-length study Literature and Money revived a largely neglected topic.