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Featured articles An introduction to An Inspector Calls Chris Power introduces An Inspector Calls as a morality play that denounces the hypocrisy and callousness of capitalism and argues that a just society can only be achieved if all individuals feel a sense of social responsibility. Read more An introduction to The Bell Jar Sarah Churchwell examines how The Bell Jar critiques the expectations and limitations placed on young women in the 1950s – and how these expectations and limitations have shaped the novel’s reception. Read more Mrs Dalloway: exploring consciousness and the modern world Elaine Showalter describes how, in Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf uses stream of consciousness to enter the minds of her characters and portray cultural and individual change in the period following the First World War. Read more An introduction to Andrea Levy's Small Island Andrea Levy's Small Island is a story of post-war Caribbean migration, narrated from four different perspectives. Hannah Lowe explores how the novel is intrinsically linked with Levy's own Caribbean ancestry, as well as how it has become more widely associated with the Windrush experience. Read more Angela Carter, Gothic literature and The Bloody Chamber The Bloody Chamber is a collection of modern fairy tales, many of which incorporate elements of Gothic literature. Greg Buzwell traces the Gothic influence on Carter's stories, from the Marquis de Sade to Edgar Allan Poe. Read more An introduction to Animal Farm George Orwell’s Animal Farm combines animal fable with political satire targeting Stalinist Russia. John Sutherland describes the novel’s genesis, its struggle to find a publisher, and its eventual success. Read more Zadie Smith on The Buddha of Suburbia When Zadie Smith encountered The Buddha of Suburbia as a teenager, she found in its description of multiracial South London suburbs an image of her own experience. Here she remembers her first reading of the novel and describes how, on rereading it as an adult, she continues to appreciate Hanif Kureishi's sense of mischief and his depictions of race and class. Read more 'The man from over the top of the hill': Simon Armitage on Ted Hughes Ted Hughes believed that poetry had the power to heal and transform, to change perceptions and to alter states. Like many of us, Simon Armitage first encountered Hughes’s poetry at school and was captivated by his ability to distill the complexity of human experience. Here he explores some of Hughes’s themes and interests and the impact he had on his own life and work. Read more Themes Explore key themes in 20th-century literature Art, music and popular culture From riots at the ballet to punk rock fanzines, discover the music, art and popular culture that shook the world in the 20th century. Read more Capturing and creating the modern Modernist writers broke new ground by experimenting with new forms and themes. From everyday life, perception and time to the kaleidoscopic and fractured nature of modern life, discover the ways in which these writers created and captured the modern. Read more Gender and sexuality From Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, E M Forster’s Maurice and Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey to Sylvia Plath’s journals and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, discover how literature explored, questioned and exploded traditional ideas of gender roles and sexuality. Read more Fantasy and fairy tale From subversive fairy tales to gothic nightmares, explore how 20th-century writers used fantasy to analyse and question the real world around them. Read more View themes Collection items Browse over 300 treasures from the British Library collection and beyond Ulysses by James Joyce, published by Shakespeare and Company Notebook drafts of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (Volume I) 27 June 1923–after 28 January 1924 Typescript summary notes for High-Rise by J G Ballard, with a draft of the novel c. 1974 Notebook used by Angela Carter for Wise Children undated Typescript second draft of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath undated George Orwell's notes for Nineteen Eighty-Four 1939/40–46/47 Manuscript of T S Eliot's The Waste Land, with Ezra Pound's annotations before October 1922 View collection items People Explore iconic authors of the 20th century Angela Carter Ted Hughes Hanif Kureishi View people Explore key 20th century literary works Explore key 20th century literary works Birthday Letters Created by: Ted Hughes Birthday Letters, a collection of 88 poems by the British poet Ted Hughes, was published to public and critical ... The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories Created by: Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is a 1979 collection of short fiction by the British writer Angela Carter. Each ... The Buddha of Suburbia Created by: Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) is a bestselling novel by the British writer Hanif Kureishi. Its main protagonist is a ... 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