Easy to use in the classroom or as a tool for revision, Oxford Literature Companions provide student-friendly analysis of a range of popular A Level set texts. Each book offers a lively, engaging approach to the text, covering characterisation and role, genre, context, language, themes, structure, performance and critical views, whilst also providing a range of varied and in-depth activities to deepen understanding and encourage close work wtih the text. Each book also includes a comprehensive Skills and Practice section, which provides detailed advice on assessment and a bank of exam-style questions and annotated sample student answers. This guide covers Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Oxford Literature Companions Hamlet

Literature & Fiction

Beer, Anna.

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Young, beautiful, and connected by blood to the most powerful families in England, Bess Throckmorton had as much influence over Queen Elizabeth I as any woman in the realm—but she risked everything to marry the most charismatic man of the day. The secret marriage between Bess and the Queen’s beloved Sir Walter Ralegh cost both of them their fortunes, their freedom, and very nearly their lives. Yet it was Bess, resilient, passionate, and politically shrewd, who would live to restore their name and reclaim her political influence. In this dazzling biography, Bess Ralegh finally emerges from her husband’s shadow to stand as a complex, commanding figure in her own right. Writing with grace and drama, Anna Beer brings Bess to life as a woman, a wife and mother, an intimate friend of poets and courtiers, and a skilled political infighter in Europe’s most powerful and most dangerous court. The only daughter of an ambitious aristocratic family, Bess was thrust at a tender age into the very epicenter of royal power when her parents secured her the position of Elizabeth’s Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. Bess proved to be a natural player on this stage of extravagant mythmaking and covert sexual politics, until she fell in love with the Queen’s Captain of the Guard, the handsome, virile, meteorically rising Ralegh. But their secret marriage, swiftly followed by the birth of their son, would have grave consequences for both of them. Brooking the Queen’s wrath and her husband’s refusal to acknowledge their marriage, Bess brilliantly stage-managed her social and political rehabilitation and emerged from prison as the leader of a brilliant, fast-living aristocratic set. She survived personal tragedy, the ruinous global voyages launched by her husband, and the vicious plots of high-placed enemies. Though Raleigh in the end fell afoul of court intrigue, Bess lived on into the reign of James I as a woman of hard-won wisdom and formidable power. With compelling historical insight, Anna Beer recreates here the vibrant pageant of Elizabethan England—the brilliant wit and vicious betrayals, the new discoveries and old rivalries, the violence and fierce sexuality of life at court. Peopled by poets and princes, spanning the reigns of two monarchs, moving between the palaces of London and the manor house outside the capital, My Just Desire is the portrait of a remarkable woman who lived at the center of an extraordinary time. From the Hardcover edition.

My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Ralegh, Wife to Sir Walter

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Random House Trade Paperbacks

Young, beautiful, and connected by blood to the most powerful families in England, Bess Throckmorton had as much influence over Queen Elizabeth I as any woman in the realm—but she risked everything to marry the most charismatic man of the day. The secret marriage between Bess and the Queen’s beloved Sir Walter Ralegh cost both of them their fortunes, their freedom, and very nearly their lives. Yet it was Bess, resilient, passionate, and politically shrewd, who would live to restore their name and reclaim her political influence. In this dazzling biography, Bess Ralegh finally emerges from her husband’s shadow to stand as a complex, commanding figure in her own right. Writing with grace and drama, Anna Beer brings Bess to life as a woman, a wife and mother, an intimate friend of poets and courtiers, and a skilled political infighter in Europe’s most powerful and most dangerous court. The only daughter of an ambitious aristocratic family, Bess was thrust at a tender age into the very epicenter of royal power when her parents secured her the position of Elizabeth’s Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. Bess proved to be a natural player on this stage of extravagant mythmaking and covert sexual politics, until she fell in love with the Queen’s Captain of the Guard, the handsome, virile, meteorically rising Ralegh. But their secret marriage, swiftly followed by the birth of their son, would have grave consequences for both of them. Brooking the Queen’s wrath and her husband’s refusal to acknowledge their marriage, Bess brilliantly stage-managed her social and political rehabilitation and emerged from prison as the leader of a brilliant, fast-living aristocratic set. She survived personal tragedy, the ruinous global voyages launched by her husband, and the vicious plots of high-placed enemies. Though Raleigh in the end fell afoul of court intrigue, Bess lived on into the reign of James I as a woman of hard-won wisdom and formidable power. With compelling historical insight, Anna Beer recreates here the vibrant pageant of Elizabethan England—the brilliant wit and vicious betrayals, the new discoveries and old rivalries, the violence and fierce sexuality of life at court. Peopled by poets and princes, spanning the reigns of two monarchs, moving between the palaces of London and the manor house outside the capital, My Just Desire is the portrait of a remarkable woman who lived at the center of an extraordinary time.

My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Raleigh, Wife to Sir Walter

History

Ballantine Books

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot

Arts & Literature

Bloomsbury Press

Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

Anna Beer investigates the lives and achievements of eight women writers, uncovering a startling and unconventional history of literature\n'Essential reading.' Claire Tomalin\nWarned not to write – and certainly not to bite – these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history.\nFrom the fourteenth century through to the present day, women who write have been understood as mad, undisciplined or dangerous. Female writers have always had to find ways to overcome or challenge these beliefs. Some were cautious and discreet, some didn’t give a damn, but all lived complex, eventful and often controversial lives.\nEve Bites Back places the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton centre stage in the history of literature in English, uncovering stories of dangerous liaisons and daring adventures. From Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer and Anne Bradstreet, to Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, these are the women who dared to write.

Dramas & Plays

Oneworld Publications

Margery Kempe. Aemilia Lanyer. Aphra Behn. Lady Mary. Jane Austen. Warned not to write - and certainly not to bite - these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history. 'Smart, funny and highly readable... a tour de force.' A.L. Kennedy Ever since Sappho first put stylus to papyrus, women who write have been labelled mad, undisciplined and dangerous. Funny and provocative, Eve Bites Back offers an alternative history of English literature. Placing the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton centre stage, Anna Beer builds a vibrant new canon through Restoration wits, scandalous sensation novelists and medieval mystics. Delving into the lives and work of eight pioneers - Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Beer uncovers the struggles and triumphs of these gamechangers, ground-breakers and genre-makers.

Discover an invigorating new perspective on the life and work of William Shakespeare&nbsp;&nbsp; The&nbsp;Life of the Author: William Shakespeare&nbsp;delivers&nbsp;a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare,&nbsp;offering&nbsp;readers a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor. It also explores the nature of his relationships with his friends, colleagues, and family, and asks important questions about the stories we tell about Shakespeare based on the evidence we actually have about the man himself.&nbsp; The book is written using scholarly citations and references,&nbsp;but with an&nbsp;approachable style suitable for readers with little or no background knowledge of Shakespeare or the era in which he lived.&nbsp;The&nbsp;Life of the Author: William Shakespeare&nbsp;asks&nbsp;provocative&nbsp;questions about the playwright-poet's preoccupation with gender roles and sexuality, and explores why it is so challenging to&nbsp;ascertain his&nbsp;political and religious allegiances.&nbsp;Conservative or radical? Misogynist or&nbsp;proto-feminist? A lover of men or women or both? Patriot or xenophobe? This introduction to Shakespeare's life and works offers no simple answers, but&nbsp;recognizes a man&nbsp;intensely responsive to the world around him,&nbsp;a playwright&nbsp;willing and able to collaborate with others&nbsp;and able to collaborate with others, and,&nbsp;of course,&nbsp;his exceptional, perhaps unique, contribution to literature in English.&nbsp;&nbsp; The book&nbsp;covers the entirety of William&nbsp;Shakespeare's life&nbsp;(1564-1616),&nbsp;taking him from his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to&nbsp;his success in&nbsp;the theatre world of London and then back to his home town&nbsp;and&nbsp;comfortable&nbsp;retirement.&nbsp;The Life of the Author: William&nbsp;Shakespeare&nbsp;sets his achievement as a writer within the dangerous, vibrant cultural world that was Elizabethan and Jacobean England, revealing a writer's life&nbsp;of frequent collaboration, occasional crisis, but always of&nbsp;profound creativity.&nbsp; Perfect for&nbsp;undergraduate students in Literature, Drama, Theatre Studies, History, and Cultural&nbsp;Studies courses,&nbsp;The&nbsp;Life of the Author: William Shakespeare&nbsp;will also earn a place in the libraries of&nbsp;students interested in Gender Studies and Creative Writing.&nbsp;

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare

Wiley/Blackwell

A fresh and engaging account of the life, times, politics, loves, and letters of the great English poet John Milton on the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. John Milton is one of the world's greatest poets, renowned author of the epic Paradise Lost as well as numerous sonnets and other works. But he was also deeply involved in the political and religious controversies of his time. Fully immersed in the new and rapidly changing print culture, Milton wrote a series of radical pamphlets on free speech, divorce, and religious, political, and social rights that proposed a complete rethinking of the nature and practice not only of government, but of human freedom itself. Having put his pen at the service of Parliament against King Charles, and his Latin at the service of Cromwell's new commonwealth, when the Restoration came Milton was lucky to escape with his life. By then completely blind, he persevered, creating the majestic works that made him immortal. For centuries Milton has emerged from biographies either as a blind, saintly figure removed from the messy business of personal affections, or as a woman-hating domestic tyrant. Yet as Anna Beer shows, he was neither ogre nor paragon. Milton had intense and often troubled relationships with both men (such as his early, passionate friendship with Charles Diodati) and women (throughout his three marriages). By closely examining all aspects of Milton's life―his poetry, his prose, his Latin writings, his careful editing of his own biography, the records of his government work, and the social and political history of England during one of its most tumultuous periods (an era that ran from Shakespeare's plays to Samuel Pepys's diaries)―Anna Beer succeeds in bringing a celebrated and enigmatic writer to vivid life on the four hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot

John Milton was one of the world's greatest poets, the renowned author of Paradise Lost. But he was also deeply involved in political and religious controversies of his time, and authored a series of radical pamphlets on free speech, divorce, and civil rights that proposed a rethinking of the nature and practice of government. 
In countless biographies, Milton has been crudely sketched either as a blind, saintly artist or as a domestic tyrant. Yet as Anna Beer shows, he was neither ogre nor paragon. By closely examining all aspects of Milton's life and its social historical context, Beer succeeds in bringing an enigmatic pillar of English literature to life, four centuries after his birth.

Patriot or Traitor: The Life and Death of Sir Walter Ralegh

Historical

BRILLIANCE AUDIO ^

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Beer, Anna.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Beer, Anna.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Beer, Anna.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Oxford Literature Companions Hamlet

My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Ralegh, Wife to Sir Walter

My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Raleigh, Wife to Sir Walter

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot

Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot

Patriot or Traitor: The Life and Death of Sir Walter Ralegh