Book excerpt: The English Studies Book is uniquely designed to support students and teachers working across the full range of language, literature and culture. Combining the functions of study guide, critical dictionary and text anthology, it has rapidly established itself as a core text on a wide variety of degree programmes nationally and internationally. Revised and updated throughout, features of the second edition include: * a new prologue addressing changes and challenges in English Studies * substantial entries on over 100 key critical and theoretical terms, from 'absence' and 'author' to 'text' and 'versification' - with new entries on 'creative writing', 'travel writing' and 'translation' * practical introductions to all the major theoretical approaches, with new sections on aesthetics, ethics, ecology and sexuality * a rich anthology of literary and related texts from Anglo-Saxon to Afro-Caribbean, with fresh selections representing the sonnet, haiku, slave narratives and science fiction, and with additional texts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Darwin, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Amy Tan and others * handy frameworks and checklists for close reading, research, essay writing and other textual activities, including use of the Internet.