This is a guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature, charting some of the main features of literary language development and highlighting key language topics.

The hero of the story is a demonic lover—dark, handsome, mysterious, and dangerously seductive. The heroine—beautiful, and innocent—willingly becomes his victim and is destroyed by him. This story of demon-lover and victim, always charged with passion, has been told over and over, from Greek mythology through contemporary fiction and films. Demon-Lovers and Their Victims in British Fiction is the first historical and structural exploration of the demon-lover motif, with emphasis on major works of British fiction from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; it will interest those concerned with gender role conflicts in literature and with the mutual influence of oral and written texts of folklore and formal literature.

Though left uncompleted, “Kubla Khan” is one of the most famous examples of Romantic era poetry. In it, Samuel Coleridge provides a stunning and detailed example of the power of the poet’s imagination through his whimsical description of Xanadu, the capital city of Kublai Khan’s empire. Samuel Coleridge penned “Kubla Khan” after waking up from an opium-induced dream in which he experienced and imagined the realities of the great Mongol ruler’s capital city. Coleridge began writing what he remembered of his dream immediately upon waking from it, and intended to write two to three hundred lines. However, Coleridge was interrupted soon after and, his memory of the dream dimming, was ultimately unable to complete the poem. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.