Antonio's Devils deals both historically and theoretically with the origins of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature by tracing the progress of a few remarkable writers who, for various reasons and in various ways, cited Scripture for their own purpose, as Antonio's "devil," Shylock, does in The Merchant of Venice. By examining the work of key figures in the early history of Jewish literature through the prism of their allusions to classical Jewish texts, the book focuses attention on the magnificent and highly complex strategies the maskilim employed to achieve their polemical and ideological goals. Dauber uses this methodology to examine foundational texts by some of the Jewish Enlightenment's most interesting and important authors, reaching new and often surprising conclusions.

When the leading figures of the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskala, wanted to convince their traditionalist audiences to subscribe to their secularist ideologies, they needed to legitimate their points in traditional language—otherwise, the audiences would simply dismiss them out of hand as heretical. Taking that as a starting point, the book looks at how a few of these individuals subversively drew on a classical tradition for modern purposes.

The Texas Rangers have been the source of tall tales and the stuff of legend as well as a growing darker reputation. But the story of the Rangers along the Mexican border between Texas statehood and the onset of the Civil War has been largely overlooked—until now. This engaging history pulls readers back to a chaotic time along the lower Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century. Texas Devils challenges the time-honored image of “good guys in white hats” to reveal the more complicated and sobering reality behind the Ranger Myth. Michael L. Collins demonstrates that, rather than bringing peace to the region, the Texas Rangers contributed to the violence and were often brutal in their injustices against Spanish-speaking inhabitants, who dubbed them los diablos Tejanos—the Texas devils. Collins goes beyond other, more laudatory Ranger histories to focus on the origins of the legend, casting Ranger immortals such as John Coffee “Jack” Hays, Ben McCulloch, and John S. “Rip” Ford in a new and not always flattering light. In revealing a barbaric code of conduct on the Rio Grande frontier, Collins shows that much of the Ranger Myth doesn’t hold up to close historical scrutiny. Texas Devils offers exciting true stories of the Rangers for anyone captivated by their legend, even as it provides a corrective to that legend.

Plucked from his beloved Italian country-side, severed from his family, and placed on an ocean liner in the bay of Naples, Antonio Russo, just ten years old, embarks on the journey of his life. As he steps foot onto New York soil with not a word of English, his pockets stuffed with salami and provolone cheese and wearing a pair of shoes for the occasion, Antonio recalls the promise from his mother that in America he would find family members to take care of him and the trees blossoming with gold. This young Italian boy finds himself hit hard with a large dose of reality, obstacles at every turn. These obstacles would become the demons with which Antonio finds himself doing constant battle, but as fate would have it, he one day comes to realize that he is good at something. He finds by chance that he has a natural instinct and ability in the sport of wrestling. As his story unfolds, it would be the sport of wrestling that ignites a passion and guides him to the realization of his true potential, giving meaning to the struggle he and his family would endure in their journey from Southern Italy to the United States to create a better way of life.

This edition seeks to evaluate Antonio's Revenge not merely as a literary text but as a drama for a particular company, in a specific theatre. The scholarly introduction explores the high degree of originality in Marston's dramatic techniques and establishes him as a leading innovator in both the language and the dramaturgy of his day. Ostensibly the second part of Antonio and Mellida, a satiric romance published in 1599, Antonio's Revenge differs in both theme and linguistic style. Reavley Gair offers an insightful analysis of the play's relationship with Shakespeare's Hamlet --written at about the same time--and a new interpretation of the relations between dramatic companies at the Globe and the Paul's Theatre.

The dramatic desert landscapes of the Big Bend country along the Texas-Mexico border reminded historian Walter Prescott Webb of "an earth-wreck in which a great section of country was shaken down, turned over, blown up, and set on fire." By contrast, naturalist Aldo Leopold considered the region a mountainous paradise in which even the wild Mexican parrots had no greater concern than "whether this new day which creeps slowly over the canyons is bluer or golder than its predecessors, or less so." Whether it impresses people as God's country or as the devil's playground, the Big Bend typically evokes strong responses from almost everyone who lives or visits there. In this anthology of nature writing, Barney Nelson gathers nearly sixty literary perspectives on the landscape and life of the Big Bend region, broadly defined as Trans-Pecos Texas and northern Chihuahua, Mexico. In addition to Leopold and Webb, the collection includes such well-known writers as Edward Abbey, Mary Austin, Roy Bedichek, and Frederick Olmsted, as well as a wide range of voices that includes explorers, trappers, cowboys, ranch wives, curanderos, college presidents, scientists, locals, tourists, historians, avisadores, and waitresses. Following a personal introduction by Barney Nelson, the pieces are grouped thematically to highlight the distinctive ways in which writers have responded to the Big Bend.

Beloved New York Times bestseller M.C. Beaton's cranky, crafty Agatha Raisin—the star of her own hit T.V. series—is back on the case again in Devil's Delight. Agatha and her assistant, Toni, are driving to their friend Bill Wong’s long-awaited wedding, thinking of nothing more than what the beautiful bride will be wearing when a terrified young man comes running down the country lane towards them wearing...nothing at all. The encounter leads them to become embroiled with a naturist group, a disappearing corpse, fantasy games, witchcraft, an ice cream empire, intrigue and murder. In the meantime, Agatha’s hectic life swirls along at dizzying pace, her private detective agency as busy as ever and her private affairs in turmoil, with old loves to contend with and a new suitor on the scene. But when she begins to close in on a suspected murderer, she finds herself in deadly peril, as the sinister nature of the ice cream business leads her to a chilling conclusion...