British Victorian Literature: Critical Assessments (Hardbound - 2014)

British Victorian Literature: Critical Assessments is a cross-section of some of the most insightful and perceptive critical writings ever published on a very complex period in English literary history. Divided into five sections — Victorianism, Poetry, Fiction, Prose, and Criticism and Drama — this selection offers a comprehensive survey of the Victorian age in literature.

It is hoped that all students of advanced English literature will find this book immensely useful.

Literary critic, professor, poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and translator, Shiv K. Kumar was born in Lahore. He received his doctorate in English Literature at Cambridge for his thesis “Bergson & the Stream of Consciousness Novel”. He was Chairman of the Department of English at Osmania University and subsequently Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Hyderabad — from where he retired as its Vice-Chancellor. His research papers have appeared in such internationally known journals as Modern Language Review (Cambridge); Notes & Queries (Oxford); Modern Philology (Chicago); Journal of Art & Aesthetics (Ohio); English Studies (Groningen) and Toronto Review of English Studies. He has authored numerous works of literary criticism (published in the USA and the UK) besides five novels, two collections of short stories, seven collections of poems, a play and a translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

In 1978, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1987 he received the Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) award for his collection of poems Trapfalls in the Sky. In 2001, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.

Professor Kumar has been Commonwealth Visiting Professor of Literature at the University of Kent (UK) and Distinguished Professor at the Universities of Oklahoma and Northern Iowa. He has also served as a member of Jury for the Neusdtadt Literary Prize (USA).