In 2010 Jolyon Connell, founder of popular current affairs magazines The Week and MoneyWeek, tried to help his daughter Flora with her A-level English text for The Tempest, and was astonished by the lack of accessible, up-to-date guides that would help him (and Flora) understand the finer points of the play. Adapting the principles of The Week to English texts, Jolyon commissioned experts in various literary fields to write guide books to great novels, poems and plays on the main English syllabuses.
Great Reads in Their Own Right.
Each book brings to life a single work of literature and provides an intelligent, illuminating discussion by an academic or critic at the very top of his or her field; writers with passion and something to say. Connell Guides put forward, clearly and concisely, an authoritative and compelling interpretation of what a work is about; what it tells us about the world and human nature, and why it has endured.
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"The Connell Guides are a rarity because they straddle the middle ground between standard study guides and expert sources. They have the readability of a study guide and the scholarly emphasis of an academic article."
Francis Gilbert, TES Magazine
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"Connell Guides transformed my English, reinvigorated a passion that I had lost, and fuelled me towards top grades. They taught me how the study of literature really works, and are the secret to success you'll find yourself unwilling to share..."
Alfie Fletcher, A Level Student