Lord Peter by Dorothy Sayers

This complete collection of Dorothy Sayers's short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey is simply delightful. It's easier to leap to the proper conclusion in the short stories than in the novels, partially because there's less room for things to unfold, but the stories are uniformly written with the wit and grace that makes Sayers's writing so enjoyable. This collection would be especially good if one didn't have the time or energy to read an entire novel. I particularly liked the story solved by a crossword puzzle, the story whose key lay in an old book, and the story in which Lord Peter showed off his fine palate.

Eros and Psyche by Karen Chase

This study contrasts three psychological novels: Jane Eyre, Bleak House, and Middlemarch. While all three write the character of the individual into the fabric of the book, Chase is careful to preserve differences and distances between the authors. The readings seem spot on, and Chase gracefully links her arguments together.

The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Leguin

I found this collection of short stories enjoyable but uneven. I enjoyed the two Earthsea stories, "The Word of Unbinding" and "The Rule of Names" (uncollected elsewhere) the most, but I also really liked "Winter's King" and "April in Paris." I had a hard time getting into some of the most hardcore science fiction, and her fantasy/science fiction writing remains much more compelling, to my mind, than her realist fiction. The collection would be worth picking up and skimming, and then reading only the appealing ones.

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling

I was surprised by this collection of short stories. They aren't all about Mowgli, and not all of them are even set in India. Kipling includes a lot of verse, some of which is more compelling than the rest. The Mowgli stories and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi are the best; they all focus on the way that the jungle works--through a Law which all obey. Overall better than I thought they would be.

The Rape of Clarissa by Terry Eagleton

I found this study to improve as it went along. It begins by setting Clarissa in its cultural context, in an introduction almost as long as the book itself. Then the first part of the main text is a Freudian reading of the book, focusing on the sexual/textual metaphor. The second part of the main text (and the real reason to read this book) is a rollicking attack on previous readings of the rape. Eagleton certainly doesn't hold any punches here. He concludes with a coda on Sir Charles Grandison.

The Circus and Victorian Society by Brenda Assael

I found this study to be well organized and strikingly informative. Assael starts with a chapter on the origins of the Victorian circus and then examines the circus through five classes of performances: the nationalist/patriotic equestrian play, the incorporation of the exotic (animals), clowns, female acrobats, and child acrobats. Remarkably well-supported by particular detail, Assael's theories address both the relation of the circus to the coming of industry and British imperialism, and the gaze and gasp of the spectator watching dangerous acts.

Three Vampire Tales edited by Anne Williams

This edition brings together three vampire tales from the early to late nineteenth century. Williams includes a thorough introduction, and lots of contextual material first. John Polidori's The Vampyre is perhaps most notable for the circumstances surrounding its creation: when the Shelleys and Lord Byron read Coleridge's "Christabel" (excerpted in this volume) and decided to write their own ghost stories, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein and Byron started a vampire story. Polidori, his doctor at the time, finished it, and published it, so it's sometimes mistakenly attributed to Byron. The volume also includes Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, but its centerpiece is, of course, Bram Stoker's Dracula. The terror in all three of the stories comes, at least in part, from the doubling and repetition of the vampire's attacks. Beloved women are particularly susceptible to the vampire (who attack the men via their daughters, sisters, and wives) whether the vampire attacking is male or female. Dracula itself has a complex structure, and includes a fascination with travel, the combination of multiple strands of the plot in complex ways, and a superb use of Gothic horror. The juxtaposition of the tales is quite interesting, but Dracula is the jewel of the collection.