For the first time, one volume surveys the life, works and critical reputation of one of the most significant British writers of the twentieth-century: Ted Hughes.
This accessible guide to Hughes’ writing provides a rich exploration of the complete range of his works. In this volume, Terry Gifford:
- offers clear and detailed discussions of Hughes’ poetry, stories, plays, translations, essays and letters
- includes new biographical information, and previously unpublished archive material, especially on Hughes’ environmentalism
- provides a comprehensive account of Hughes’ critical reception, separated into the major themes that have interested readers and critics
- offers useful suggestions for further reading, and incorporates helpful cross-references between sections of the guide.
Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, Ted Hughes presents an accessible, fresh, and fascinating introduction to a major British writer whose work continues to be of crucial importance today.
Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Life and Contexts 2. Works 3. Criticism Conclusion Chronology Further Reading Works by Ted Hughes Select Bibliography Index
Biography
Terry Gifford is a pioneering ecocritic and Ted Hughes scholar. He is co-author (with Neil Roberts) of Ted Hughes: A Critical Study (1981) and author of Reconnecting With John Muir: Essays in Post-Pastoral Practice (2006). He is Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester, UK, and Profesor Honorario at the Universidad de Alicante, Spain.
'This is the best short overview of Hughes’s career that I’ve read[...]Gifford’s volume will, I am sure, come to be recognised as the best starting point for anyone planning serious study of Hughes' - Laurence Coupe, Green Letters
'Drawing on recently available archival research and letters, Gifford has provided richness, complexity, and new contexts to his interpretations of Hughes's writing. Gifford is also one of the few critics to offer a provocative, yet reasonable, assessment of Hughes's controversial reputation' - Carol Bere, Isle
