128 F U RT H E R R E A D I N G A N D W E B R E S O U R C E S Sue Vice, Introducing Bakhtin, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997 Concepts Graham Allen, Intertextuality, London: Routledge, 2003 Maggie Ann Bowers, Magic(al) Realism, London: Routledge, 2004 Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary, London: Blackwell, 1996 Simon Malpas, Postmodernism, London: Routledge, 2004 Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, London: Methuen, 1984 Critical history Monographs Aidan Day, Angela Carter: The Rational Glass, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998 A substantial and important study of Carter’s writing which highlights her engagement with history and politics As indicated in this section, Chapter (pp 167–94) on Nights at the Circus takes issue with previous attempts to categorize the book as postmodern Sarah Gamble, Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997 Scholarly but accessible study of Carter’s fiction and non-fiction writing which is especially interested in its socially subversive potential Chapter (pp 145–67) deals with Nights at the Circus, along with several other texts, and deals with the construction of female identities within patriarchy and the possibility of female freedom within this Gamble’s The Fiction of Angela Carter: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) contains an extremely useful and well-edited summary (pp 135–62) of some of the most influential criticism of Nights at the Circus that reproduces key passages from the critics’ works Linden Peach, Angela Carter, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998 In Chapter (pp 131–58), Peach provides a sustained examination of the presence of carnivalesque impulses, as well as criticism of the carnivalesque, in Nights at the Circus, which he examines in conjunction with Wise Children Ruth Robbins, Nights at the Circus: York Notes Advanced, London: York Press, 2000 Like Wisker’s book, this guide is targeted at inexperienced readers, though it has the benefit of being focused only on Nights at the Circus and comprises an extremely useful chapter by chapter guide to the novel which includes lengthy and detailed glossaries of terms and explanations of intertextual, philosophical and historic references Lorna Sage, Angela Carter: Writers and Their Work, Plymouth: Northcote House, 1994 In Chapter (pp 42–59) of Sage’s overview of Carter’s writing career, she provides a brief but invaluable, provocative and witty consideration of the book’s use of symbolism, time and narrative Gina Wisker, Angela Carter: A Beginner’s Guide, London: Hodder & Stoughton,