The English Handbook: A Guide to Literary Studies is a comprehensive textbook, providing essential practical and analytical reading and writing skills for literature students at all levels.

With advice and information on fundamental methods of literary analysis and research, Whitla equips students with the knowledge and tools essential for advanced literary study.

• Includes traditional close reading strategies integrated with newer critical theory, ranging from gender and genre to post-structuralism and post-colonialism; with examples from Beowulf to Atwood, folk ballads to Fugard, and Christopher Marlowe to Conrad's Marlow


• Draws on a wide range of resources, from print to contemporary electronic media


• Supplies a companion website with chapter summaries, charts, examples, web links, and suggestions for further study

William Whitla is Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar in English and Humanities at York University in Toronto. He has published The Central Truth (on Robert Browning, 1963), Essays and Reviews (on Victorian literature and religion, with Victor Shea, 2000), and Foundations: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing (also with Victor Shea, 2001 and 2005).

Part I. Introduction

1. What is English and What is Literature?

Part II. Foundational Skills

2. Reading English: From Opening a Book to Critical Analysis

3. Library Research and Scholarly Method

4. Writing in English Studies

Part III. The Major Genres

5. Drama

6. Prose Fiction

7. Poetry

Part IV. Theory

8. Language and Literary Studies

9. Recent Critical Practice

10. The Politics of Reading: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity