John Mullan

Writer - Non-fiction

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Photograph: Paul Musso

Books

Associate: Seren Adams

Books

John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London. He has published widely on eighteenth and nineteenth century literature. Most recently he is the author of HOW NOVELS WORK (OUP, 2006), ANONYMITY: A SECRET HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE (Faber, 2008) and WHAT MATTERS IN JANE AUSTEN?: TWENTY CRUCIAL PUZZLES SOLVED ( Bloomsbury, 2012). A broadcaster and journalist as well as an academic, he writes a weekly column on contemporary fiction for the Guardian

John's new book, THE ARTFUL DICKENS: PLOYS AND TRICKS OF THE GREAT NOVELIST, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. 

Non-Fiction

Publication DetailsNotes
2012

World English Language: Bloomsbury

John Mullan is steeped in Jane Austen. In this book he will ask what makes her the greatest of all novelists, invoking Virginia Woolf's remark that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness. By looking closely at the intriguing minutiae of her fiction, the quirks and intricacies of her stories, he will bring her alive.

2008

Faber and Faber

Many of the great books of English literature were first published without their authors' names upon them. But why did authors choose anonymity? And how did it excite the curiosity of their first readers? Ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day, Anonymity looks at the ways in which the disguises of writers such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë were first used to tease readers (and bamboozle critics). It is a gripping and fascinating fast-paced tour of many of the greatest works in English, and will enrich and reward all who love to read.

2006

Oxford University Press

Drawing on his weekly Guardian column, "Elements of Fiction" John Mullan offers an engaging look at the novel, focusing mostly on works of the last ten years as he illuminates the rich resources of novelistic technique. Mullan sheds light on some of the true masterworks of contemporary fiction, including Monica Ali's Brick Lane, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, Don DeLillo's Underworld, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Patricia Highsmith's Ripley under Ground, Ian McEwan's Atonement, John le Carré's The Constant Gardener, Philip Roth's The Human Stain, Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated, and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. He highlights how these acclaimed authors use some of the basic elements of fiction. Some topics (like plot, dialogue, or location) will appear familiar to most novel readers, while others (meta-narrative, prolepsis, amplification) will open readers' eyes to new ways of understanding and appreciating the writer's craft. Mullan also excels at comparing modern and classic authors-Nick Hornby's adoption of a female narrator is compared to Daniel Defoe's; Ian McEwan's use of weather is set against Austen's and Hardy's. How Novels Work explains how the pleasures of novel reading often come from the formal ingenuity of the novelist, making visible techniques and effects we are often only half-aware of as we read. It is an entertaining and stimulating volume that will captivate anyone who is interested in the contemporary or the classical novel.