Suggested Reading (Semester 1)

English Reading List

This page provides a selected list of books for 1st Year English modules that we feel might be useful for you before commencing studies in English at Liverpool. This is to give you an idea of some of the content in a selection of the major 1st year modules, and to help you to get a little bit ahead before the programme begins if you wish. Please don’t worry though – we don’t expect you to have read all this on arrival! There is plenty of time to do the reading in the first semester, and we have multiple copies accessible through the library here at Liverpool, which are available to you on the commencement of your studies. With that in mind, you may wish to buy some or all of the books at this stage, but please don't feel obligated to do so. 

 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Introduction to Stylistics

Paul Simpson, Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students, 2nd edn (Oxford: Routledge, 2014)

Alison Gibbons and Sara Whiteley, Contemporary Stylistics: Language, Cognition, Interpretation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018). 

Introduction to Language Study

Joan C. Beal, An Introduction to Regional Englishes: Dialect Variation in England (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010).

David Crystal, A Little Book of Language (Yale: Yale University Press, 2010)

 

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Overview

Robert Eaglestone, Doing English: A Guide for Literature Students, 4th ed. (Oxford: Routledge, 2017)

Literature in Time

Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus, ed. David Scott Kastan (US: Norton, 2005) (please read the ‘A’ Text). If this is not accessible to you before you arrive, a free online version is available here: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0010%3Ascene%3D1 

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, ed. John Bugg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). The Kindle version of this edition is currently available very cheaply at Amazon. 

Harold Pinter, The Homecoming (London: Faber & Faber, 1991).  

Samuel Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (London: Penguin, 2006)

Close Reading

This module does not have 'core' reading as such, but if you'd like to get a sense of what close reading is, then we'd suggest looking at the following:

David Lodge, The Art of Fiction (London: Penguin, 1992).

Terry Eagleton, How To Read A Poem (Oxford: Wiley, 2006)

Eavan Boland and Mark Strand, The Making of a Poem (US: Norton, 2001)

Andrew Hodgson, The Cambridge Guide to Reading Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Please note that these are useful background, NOT required reading.