Joseph Andrews (Critical Studies, Penguin)

Literature & Fiction

Nokes, David

History & Criticism

Penguin??Books

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1985.

Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography

Humor & Satire

Oxford Univ. Pr.

There has long been a need for an accessible, comprehensive--and affordable--single-volume life of Swift. This thoughtful, judicious biography promises to fill that need for our generation. Few author's reputations have fluctuated as wildly as Jonathan Swift's. From the beginning, critics and biographers divided into two camps--one hailing a champion of liberty, the other reviling a sadistic misanthrope. For years, moreover, an understanding of Swift's life was clouded by legends of his madness and mysteries surrounding his romantic attachments. Modern scholarship had swept all of this away, however, giving us a much sounder factual basis for comprehending the man's life and work. David Nokes portrays the author of Gulliver's Travels in his multifarious roles as satirist, politician, churchman, and friend. Combining the latest findings of Swiftian scholarship with an astute critical eye, he restores a proper balance between the specialist critics who have overemphasized specific themes or genres in Swift's work and the generalist critics who have missed many of the particularities of Swift's ironies. In so doing, Nokes gives us a biography very much in the spirit Swift himself endorsed: "a conservative humanism which saw specialisation as a first dangerous step towards that distorted simplification of complex human phenomena which characterized the views of all factions and fanatics." About the Author: David Nokes is Lecturer in English at King's College, the University of London.

Jonathan Swift, A Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography

Biographies & Memoirs

Oxford University Press

This major biography is the first full-length life of John Gay (1685-1732) for over fifty years. David Nokes's detailed and extensive research has unearthed several new discoveries, including hitherto unpublished letters, and possible attributions. Presenting Gay as a complex character, torn between the hopes of court preferment and the assertion of literary independence, this book is at once a lively and readable biography for the non-specialist, as well as a comprehensive and scholarly study.

John Gay: A Profession of Friendship

Dramas & Plays

Drawing on unpublished sources, the author offers an intimate, psychological portrait of the novelist, revealing the truth behind many disturbing Austen family secrets and tracing the internal conflicts that formed Austen's divided character.

Jane Austen: A Life

Arts & Literature

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

In this new biography of Jane Austen, David Nokes plays master sleuth and storyteller in presenting the great novelist "not in the modest pose which her family determined for her, but rather, as she most frequently presented herself, as rebellious, satirical, and wild."

University of California Press

Samuel Johnson: A Life

Physical description; xx, 415 pages, [8] plates of plates : illustrations, plates (some colour). ; 25 cm. Subject; Johnson, Samuel 1709-1784.

Henry Holt and Co.

Faber&Faber

Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed

A modern biography of Samuel Johnson that will serve as the definitive work on the legendary British man of letters
In this groundbreaking portrait of Samuel Johnson, David Nokes positions the great thinker in his rightful place as an active force in the Enlightenment, not a mere recorder or performer, and demonstrates how his interaction with life impacted his work. This is the story of how Johnson struggled to define the English language, why he embarked upon such foolhardiness, and where he found the courage to do so. Moving beyond James Boswell’s seminal narrative about the life of the preeminent eighteenth-century novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor, essayist, and lexicographer, this biography addresses his life and action through the hitherto unexplored perspectives of such major players as Johnson’s wife, Tetty; Hester Thrale, in whose household he resided for seventeen years while working on his annotated Shakespeare; and Frances Barber, the black manservant who in many ways was like a son to Johnson. An in-depth interrogation of the primary sources, particularly the letters, offer surprising insight into Johnson’s formative experiences. At last, here’s a reading of the great man that will reveal the rightful glory of an enduring work and an incomparable scholar.

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

Books by Nokes, David

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

Joseph Andrews (Critical Studies, Penguin)

Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography

Jonathan Swift, A Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography

John Gay: A Profession of Friendship

Jane Austen: A Life

Jane Austen: A Life

Samuel Johnson: A Life

Samuel Johnson: A Life

Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed

Samuel Johnson: A Life