Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama

Book came fast and in perfect condition looked as if no one had used it. Will buy from again

item arrived in good condition the short stories are a good read the skills and exercises also do a good job to help one out.

I was very pleased with the condition and timeliness that I recieved my purchase. Deffinitely impressed.

I picked this book up for a class, expecting to be perfectly bored. Instead, this book woke up my sleeping love of learning and literature. The book is easy to understand and contains MANY great stories and poems in it. It also has a great glossary and index was well. It came with an additional feature, MyLiteratureLab, which is an accompanying web page. That is also very helpful indeed. This book is so good, there were even people at work wanting to check it out!

... First of all, it is massive and contains three books in one - fiction, poetry and drama. Each section includes a plethora of selections as well as longer works (like the full length plays of Hamlet and Macbeth). So one is really getting quite a library from this one book.Even better, the sections are organized along themes in order to teach the student (or interested reader) how to appreciate the various forms. So the poetry section has sections on sound, figures of speech, rhythm, closed and open form, etc. I suppose this comes from it being a textbook for undergraduate courses - in any case, it pays off. I've learned a tremendous amount already. It's all in very easy to understand non-technical language, too.At the end of the book, there is even a brief section on various forms of literary criticism. The book contains numerous student essays, brief author biographies, reflections by the authors on their own works (this is really great), and it reflects a really broad range of genres and time periods (unfortunately the section on haiku is plagued by bad translations, and there aren't enough examples of Chinese and other Japanese poetry... oh well!). There is also an emphasis on getting the reader to practice (and write for him or herself) what is being taught. So if you want to be a writer, this is great.If you're a beginner interested in getting into literature, this is really a great way to do it. Don't be put off by the massiveness of this book - it's really a resource. Just start in one small place (I started in 'poetry') and work your way around. It will definitely increase your appreciation for literature.