This sweeping study of fantasy literature offers “new and often surprising readings of works both familiar and obscure. A fine critical work” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts). Transcending arguments over the definition of fantasy literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy introduces a provocative new system of classification for the genre. Drawing on nearly two hundred examples of modern fantasy, author Farah Mendlesohn identifies four categories—portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal—that arise out of the relationship of the protagonist to the fantasy world. Using these sets, Mendlesohn argues that the author's stylistic decisions are then shaped by the inescapably political demands of the category in which they choose to write. Each chapter covers at least twenty books in detail, ranging from nineteenth-century fantasy and horror to some of the best works in the contemporary field. Mendlesohn discusses works by more than one hundred authors, including Lloyd Alexander, Peter Beagle, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Crowley, Stephen R. Donaldson, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis, Gregory Maguire, Robin McKinley, China Miéville, Suniti Namjoshi, Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Sheri S. Tepper, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tad Williams, and many others.

The history of Irish Travellers is not analogous to that of the 'tinker', a Europe-wide underworld fantasy created by sixteenth-century British and continental Rogue Literature that came to be seen as an Irish character alone as English became dominant in Ireland. By the Revival, the tinker represented bohemian, pre-Celtic aboriginality, functioning as the cultural nationalist counter to the Victorian Gypsy mania. Long misunderstood as a portrayal of actual Travellers, J.M. Synge's influential The Tinker's Wedding was pivotal to this 'Irishing' of the tinker, even as it acknowledged that figure's cosmopolitan textual roots. Synge's empathetic depiction is closely examined, as are the many subsequent representations that looked to him as a model to subvert or emulate. In contrast to their Revival-era romanticization, post-independence writing portrayed tinkers as alien interlopers, while contemporaneous Unionists labelled them a contaminant from the hostile South. However, after Travellers politicized in the 1960s, more even-handed depictions heralded a querying of the 'tinker' fantasy that has shaped contemporary screen and literary representations of Travellers and has prompted Traveller writers to transubstantiate Otherness into the empowering rhetoric of ethnic difference. Though its Irish equivalent has oscillated between idealization and demonization, US racial history facilitates the cinematic figuring of the Irish-American Traveler as lovable 'white trash' rogue. This process is informed by the mythology of a population with whom Travelers are allied in the white American imagination, the Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots). In short, the 'tinker' is much more central to Irish, Northern Irish and even Irish-American identity than is currently recognised.

What is the Stanley Cup and when was it first awarded? What team has won the cup the most? And is there really a Lord Stanley and how did the cup come to carry his name? Hockey fans will find the answers to these questions and much more information in S is for the Stanley Cup: A Hockey Championship Alphabet. The Stanley Cup is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoff winner and is one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in professional sports. Following the alphabet this book uses poetry and expository text to pay tribute to the Stanley Cup with topics that include Cup history and records, famous team captains, nail-biting finishes, as well as unique traditions.

This colossal Guide includes information on every top level event, every IIHF member nation, and, indeed, every player to appear in even a single game since international hockey first took hold in 1920. In all, more than 12,000 players are included, as well as every coach, every referee, every linesman and every stat imaginable. The 2012 IIHF Guide and Record Book is the official and only complete source of information for international hockey. It covers all top-level events from the Olympics to World Championships to junior events, from men's hockey to women's hockey, from 1920 to the past and present seasons. At 640 pages, it contains the scores and standings for every international game and event ever contested, the statistics for every player, coach, and on-ice official in IIHF competition history, and the results and histories of every nation that has ever participated in an IIHF event. Full of information on every aspect of the international game, this is the one and only source fans will need if they are interested in the World Junior Championship, Team Canada, or any other aspect of the international game. With a special section on the World Junior Championships taking place in Alberta this Christmas, this is the most important book hockey fans will need this season.

This official publication of the National Hockey League chronicles the full history of Lord Stanley's celebrated trophy, presenting all the statistics, including complete records of every team and player to appear in the playoffs. A 16-page photo insert showcases the top performers and key moments in Cup history.