Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics which studies style, especially in works of literature. Above all, it has long fascinated academics working at the interface between language and literature, as is attested in the opening chapter of Linguistics and Literary History by Leo Spitzer (1948).

The present major work is organized into four parts across six volumes. Part 1 deals with the general issues of Theories and Methods from formalist stylistics to corpus stylistics, cognitive stylistics, and creative stylistics.

Part 2 focuses on the 'Aspects of Stylistics', such as foregrounding, transitivity, creativity, thought presentation, ideology, metaphor, collocation, identification and contextualization.

'Stylistics of Prose' is the topic of Part 3, which includes articles on stylistic analysis of prose, British and American fiction and newspapers.

Part 4 is entitled 'Stylistics of Verse and Drama'. Included in this volume are articles on stylistic analysis of poetry and drama.

It is hoped that this SAGE Major Work will be a happy addition to the field of language and literature.