The New Critical Idiom is a series of books published by Routledge that is designed to help students better understand the complex terminology of literary criticism. Each of the sixty-five volumes focuses on a single term and provides an extended definition of the term, examples of its use and misuse, and information about the larger field of literary study and how the term fits into that. Examples of volumes in The New Critical Idiom series include Fantasy, Rhetoric, Children's Literature, Modernism, Comedy, and Genre.

The volume on Comedy by Andrew Stott defines comedy and studies it through the lens of theory and methodology. It presents chapters about comic identity, comedy and the body, comedy and women, political and satirical comedy, and the relationship between comedy, race, and ethnicity.

The Fantasy volume by Lucie Armitt explores the nature of fantasy, its historical development, quests, and the relationship of fantasy to politics.

Carrie Hintz's volume on Children's Literature presents definitions of the genre, the history of that literary category, an examination of the theories and methodologies used to study children's literature, and the relationship of the genre to politics, nature, and globalization.