The Literature Student's Survival Kit

"What do Shadrach, Meshach, Abdegno and the Private of the Buffs have in common? What are Tabitha or Hecuba for you? When did the Porteous riots begin, when was the hearth tax abandoned? Littlewood’s Survival Kit provides all the answers to similar vexing questions, queries that students and teachers alike won’t have time to “google” accurately. This is the best and most up-to-date compendium of essential facts drawn from Biblical lore, universal history, literary chronologies, lists of tropes and poetic movements...a desperately needed survival kit for those who face our current mixture of information overload and short term memory."
J.M. Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania

"The Literature Student's Survival Kit is a remarkably useful collection of information of sure value to many students of literature. Written in a measured way, it presents with both clarity and grace a wide but manageable range of knowledge--historical, political, cultural, biographical, mythological, theological--that will help open up the textures of literary texts, past and present, for readers without that information already at their fingertips. Littlewood's text offers the kind of knowledge--accessibly laid out, accessibly written--that a reader so often needs to know in order to enable informed and sensitive literary interpretation. A book not only valuable but enjoyable too."
Francis O'Gorman, University of Leeds

“This is exactly the kind of book I wish I'd had as a student. It introduces and explains the unfamiliar: the Bible, classics, history. A remarkable combination of explanation, encyclopedia, glossary and database--an indispensable vade mecum. It contains fascinating insights as well as useful facts. How can a reference work be so readable?”
Laurie Maguire, University of Oxford

"This really is a remarkably useful little book."
Reference Reviews