List of Illustrations Note on Referencing 1. Introduction 2. Retirement 3. Ageing, Decrepitude and the Wisdom of the Elders 4. Self-­consciousness and Sex 5. ­Family ­Matters 6. Leaving One's Mark 7. ­Will Power 8. Nostalgia 9. Taking Stock 10. Doctoring and ­Dying 11. Ending Up 12. Postscript: On 'the Stages of Life' List of Works Cited Acknowledgements Index

1. "Among the many joys of this inspiringly high-spirited heart-to-heart with the literature of ageing, is the zest with which it seizes the opportunity of age to read again for pleasure, the better to enjoy what\rquote s left of life, or the better to endure it. If getting old has consolations, David Ellis\rquote s engrossing conversations with works we are strangers to, or thought we knew but didn\rquote t, is one of them.\rquote - Howard Jacobson, novelist and essay 2. "Blasted With Antiquity is a full-throated celebration of the literary imagination, and of how books and reading - those cherished, old-fashioned tools - provide us with rich aids to thought about age and aging.\rquote - Professor Andrea Charise, University of Toronto, author of \i The Aesthetics of Senescence: Aging, Population, and the Nineteenth-Century British Novel 3. "Witty, insightful, and ambitious, 'Blasted with Antiquity' reflects on ageing and old age across the Western literary canon. Organized around themes such as retirement, nostalgia and self-consciousness and sex, Ellis's book is a delight to read - a significant publication for scholars in literary age studies and an accessible volume for anyone interested in literary representations of growing older." - Dr Jacob Jewusiak, Newcastle University, author of Aging, Duration, and the English Novel. 4. "David Ellis's wit, honesty, humanity, learning lightly worn, and relish for dark humour make Blasted with Antiquity a pleasure to read. His approach to aspects of old age such as the loss of power and position, nostalgia for the past, the experience of physical weakness and the will to control, through well written and accessible discussions of Shakespeare, Stendhal, Chaucer, Austen, Philip Larkin, James Joyce and Alan Bennett and many others, make this book highly enjoyable and even exhilarating. Ellis has written a new classic." - Professor Janet Montefiore, University of Kent. 5. "Well, we can't all have afterlives like Sophocles'. As noted by the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell (who created Inspector Kurt Wallander), 'Nobody wants to be forgotten. But nearly everybody is'. That's certainly the truth when the lid goes on. Before that moment, though, there is something else just as real, which Ellis movingly captures - a sense of companionship and solidarity with other human beings through the enjoyment of literature. Ellis takes his readers on a lighthearted literary tour - from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, and Philip Larkin to Samuel Beckett - that explores old age in all its manifestations." - Gerry Kimber, University of Northampton, In Times Literary Supplement, March 2024, pp. 25.