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This list is a curated collection of essential books for students and scholars of English literature. Covering critical theory, literary analysis, and major literary movements, these texts provide foundational knowledge for understanding, interpreting, and critiquing literature. Whether you're an aspiring academic, a literature student, or a passionate reader looking to deepen your insights, these books will guide you through the key concepts, theories, and historical contexts that shape the study of English literature.
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| 1 |
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Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide
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4.03 avg rating — 1,494 ratings
score: 100,
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1 person voted
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| 2 |
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Literary Movements for Students: 2 volume set
by
David M. Galens (Editor)
3.97 avg rating — 35 ratings
score: 99,
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1 person voted
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| 3 |
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The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions
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4.26 avg rating — 39 ratings
score: 98,
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1 person voted
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| 4 |
|
A Common Strangeness: Contemporary Poetry, Cross-Cultural Encounter, Comparative Literature
by
Jacob Edmond (Goodreads Author)
3.71 avg rating — 7 ratings
score: 97,
and
1 person voted
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| 5 |
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The Situation of Poetry: Contemporary Poetry and Its Traditions
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3.38 avg rating — 37 ratings
score: 96,
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1 person voted
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| 6 |
|
Introspection and Contemporary Poetry
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it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
score: 95,
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1 person voted
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| 7 |
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Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life
by
3.61 avg rating — 18 ratings
score: 94,
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1 person voted
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| 8 |
|
The Literature Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
by
4.14 avg rating — 1,848 ratings
score: 93,
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1 person voted
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| 9 |
|
The Second Sex
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4.18 avg rating — 46,698 ratings
score: 92,
and
1 person voted
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| 10 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe
by
Patrick Cheney (Editor)
3.70 avg rating — 23 ratings
score: 91,
and
1 person voted
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| 11 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen
by
Edward Copeland (Editor)
4.05 avg rating — 435 ratings
score: 90,
and
1 person voted
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| 12 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature
by
Edward James (Editor)
3.89 avg rating — 254 ratings
score: 89,
and
1 person voted
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| 13 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction
by
Jerrold E. Hogle (Editor)
4.05 avg rating — 276 ratings
score: 88,
and
1 person voted
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| 14 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Kant
by
Paul Guyer (Editor)
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 135 ratings
score: 87,
and
1 person voted
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| 15 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Plato
by
Richard Kraut (Editor)
3.98 avg rating — 112 ratings
score: 86,
and
1 person voted
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| 16 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche
by
Bernd Magnus (Editor)
3.88 avg rating — 126 ratings
score: 85,
and
1 person voted
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| 17 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein
by
Hans D. Sluga (Editor)
4.11 avg rating — 116 ratings
score: 84,
and
1 person voted
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| 18 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Hegel
by
Frederick C. Beiser (Editor)
3.90 avg rating — 94 ratings
score: 83,
and
1 person voted
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| 19 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel
by
Deirdre David (Editor)
3.82 avg rating — 126 ratings
score: 82,
and
1 person voted
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| 20 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture
by
Yoshio Sugimoto (Editor)
3.90 avg rating — 102 ratings
score: 81,
and
1 person voted
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| 21 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy
by
Patricia E. Easterling (Editor)
3.86 avg rating — 100 ratings
score: 80,
and
1 person voted
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| 22 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen
by
Deborah Cartmell (Editor)
3.66 avg rating — 93 ratings
score: 79,
and
1 person voted
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| 23 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon
by
Inger H. Dalsgaard (Editor)
4.08 avg rating — 106 ratings
score: 78,
and
1 person voted
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| 24 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard
by
Alastair Hannay (Editor)
3.76 avg rating — 78 ratings
score: 77,
and
1 person voted
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| 25 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Modernism
by
Michael Levenson (editor)
3.65 avg rating — 130 ratings
score: 76,
and
1 person voted
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| 26 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger's Being and Time
by
Mark A. Wrathall (Editor)
4.29 avg rating — 49 ratings
score: 75,
and
1 person voted
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| 27 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Dante
by
Rachel Jacoff (Editor)
3.97 avg rating — 94 ratings
score: 74,
and
1 person voted
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| 28 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Foucault
by
Gary Gutting (Editor)
3.69 avg rating — 84 ratings
score: 73,
and
1 person voted
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| 29 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger
by
Charles B. Guignon (Editor)
3.79 avg rating — 86 ratings
score: 72,
and
1 person voted
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| 30 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Narrative
by
3.82 avg rating — 85 ratings
score: 71,
and
1 person voted
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| 31 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism
by
Steven Galt Crowell (Editor)
4.21 avg rating — 42 ratings
score: 70,
and
1 person voted
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| 32 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
by
Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Editor)
3.81 avg rating — 95 ratings
score: 69,
and
1 person voted
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| 33 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
by
Paul Guyer (Editor)
3.97 avg rating — 59 ratings
score: 68,
and
1 person voted
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| 34 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Sartre
by
Christina Howells (Editor)
4.02 avg rating — 54 ratings
score: 67,
and
1 person voted
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| 35 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature
by
Gregory Claeys (Editor)
4.06 avg rating — 132 ratings
score: 66,
and
1 person voted
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| 36 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot
by
Anthony David Moody (Editor)
3.78 avg rating — 81 ratings
score: 65,
and
1 person voted
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| 37 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
by
Derek Attridge (Editor)
3.86 avg rating — 86 ratings
score: 64,
and
1 person voted
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| 38 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Locke
by
Vere C. Chappell (Editor)
3.88 avg rating — 49 ratings
score: 63,
and
1 person voted
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| 39 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer
by
Christopher Janaway (Editor)
3.89 avg rating — 44 ratings
score: 62,
and
1 person voted
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| 40 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology
by
Roger D. Woodard (Editor)
3.92 avg rating — 40 ratings
score: 61,
and
1 person voted
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| 41 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf
by
3.90 avg rating — 88 ratings
score: 60,
and
1 person voted
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| 42 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory
by
Ellen Rooney (Editor)
3.83 avg rating — 46 ratings
score: 59,
and
1 person voted
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| 43 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath
by
Jo Gill (Editor)
4.03 avg rating — 73 ratings
score: 58,
and
1 person voted
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| 44 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson
by
Wendy Martin (Editor)
3.85 avg rating — 82 ratings
score: 57,
and
1 person voted
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| 45 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Socrates
by
4.27 avg rating — 41 ratings
score: 56,
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1 person voted
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| 46 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Marx
by
3.89 avg rating — 57 ratings
score: 55,
and
1 person voted
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| 47 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze
by
3.94 avg rating — 31 ratings
score: 54,
and
1 person voted
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| 48 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Children's Literature
by
M.O. Grenby (Editor)
3.81 avg rating — 54 ratings
score: 53,
and
1 person voted
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| 49 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood
by
Coral Ann Howells (Editor)
3.96 avg rating — 67 ratings
score: 52,
and
1 person voted
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| 50 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis
by
Robert MacSwain (Editor)
4.20 avg rating — 50 ratings
score: 51,
and
1 person voted
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| 51 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Lacan
by
3.67 avg rating — 63 ratings
score: 50,
and
1 person voted
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| 52 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz
by
Nicholas Jolley (Editor)
3.93 avg rating — 45 ratings
score: 49,
and
1 person voted
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| 53 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism
by
Jill Kraye (Editor)
3.90 avg rating — 49 ratings
score: 48,
and
1 person voted
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| 54 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism
by
3.65 avg rating — 49 ratings
score: 47,
and
1 person voted
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| 55 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy
by
Arthur Stephen McGrade (Editor)
4.09 avg rating — 35 ratings
score: 46,
and
1 person voted
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| 56 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing
by
David Morley (Editor)
3.61 avg rating — 44 ratings
score: 45,
and
1 person voted
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| 57 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Milton
by
Dennis Danielson (Editor)
3.83 avg rating — 89 ratings
score: 44,
and
1 person voted
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| 58 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film
by
Russell Jackson (Editor)
3.78 avg rating — 50 ratings
score: 43,
and
1 person voted
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| 59 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic
by
Harriet I. Flower (Editor)
4.15 avg rating — 47 ratings
score: 42,
and
1 person voted
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| 60 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic
by
G.R.F. Ferrari (Editor)
3.80 avg rating — 46 ratings
score: 41,
and
1 person voted
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| 61 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt
by
Dana Villa (Editor)
4.15 avg rating — 40 ratings
score: 40,
and
1 person voted
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| 62 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to To the Lighthouse
by
Allison Pease (Editor)
4.24 avg rating — 17 ratings
score: 39,
and
1 person voted
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| 63 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir
by
Claudia Card (Editor)
4.03 avg rating — 33 ratings
score: 38,
and
1 person voted
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| 64 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare
by
Margreta de Grazia (Editor)
3.87 avg rating — 67 ratings
score: 37,
and
1 person voted
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| 65 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology
by
Christopher C. Rowland (Editor)
3.77 avg rating — 47 ratings
score: 36,
and
1 person voted
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| 66 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Kafka
by
Julian Preece (Editor)
3.71 avg rating — 24 ratings
score: 35,
and
1 person voted
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| 67 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
by
John O. Jordan (Editor)
3.82 avg rating — 51 ratings
score: 34,
and
1 person voted
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| 68 |
|
The Cambridge Companion to the Brontës
by
Heather Glen (Editor)
3.76 avg rating — 51 ratings
score: 33,
and
1 person voted
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| 69 |
|
Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches
by
4.02 avg rating — 1,312 ratings
score: 32,
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1 person voted
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| 70 |
|
Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation
by
3.90 avg rating — 534 ratings
score: 31,
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1 person voted
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| 71 |
|
Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 358 ratings
score: 30,
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1 person voted
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| 72 |
|
The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research
by
3.90 avg rating — 235 ratings
score: 29,
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1 person voted
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| 73 |
|
Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory
by
3.96 avg rating — 311 ratings
score: 28,
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1 person voted
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73 books ·
1 voter ·
list created March 7th
by Mason Carter (votes) .
People Who Voted On This List (1)
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