This selection, from the poetry of Thomas Gray, Charles Churchill and William Cowper, brings together a representative sample of mid-18th century meditative, loco-descriptive and satirical verse. The selection is the first of several titles to feature three poets in one volume.

The last 200 years have witnessed a 100-fold leap in well-being. Deirdre McCloskey argues that most people today are stunningly better off than their forbearers were in 1800, and that the rest of humanity will soon be. A purely materialist, incentivist view of economic change does not explain this leap. We have now the third in McCloskey's three-volume opus about how bourgeois values transformed Europe. Volume 3 nails the case for that transfiguration, telling us how aristocratic virtues of hierarchy were replaced by bourgeois virtues (more precisely, by attitudes toward virtues) that made it possible for ordinary folk with novel ideas to change the way people, farmed, manufactured, traveled, ruled themselves, and fought. It is a dramatic story, and joins a dramatic debate opened up by Thomas Piketty in his best-selling Capital in the 21st Century. McCloskey insists that economists are far too preoccupied by capital and saving, arguing against the position (of Piketty and most others) that capital induces a tendency to get more, that money reproduces itself, that riches are created from riches. Not so, our intrepid McCloskey shows. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, among the biggest wealth accumulators in our era, didn't get rich through the magic of compound interest on capital. They got rich through intellectual property, creating billions of dollars from virtually nothing. Capital was no more important an ingredient to the original Apple or Microsoft than cookies or cucumbers. The debate is between those who think riches are created from riches versus those who, with McCloskey, think riches are created from rags, between those who see profits as a generous return on capital, or profits coming from innovation that ultimately benefits us all.

The elegiac aspect of Ted Hughes' poetry has been frequently overlooked, an oversight which this book sets out to rectify. Encompassing a broad range of themes, from the decline of nature and local industry to the national grief caused by the First World War, this book is a comprehensive addition to the study of Hughes' poetry.

Opening Doors to a Richer English Curriculum for Ages 10 to 13 takes Bob Cox's award-winning 'Opening Doors' series into bold new territories, providing a treasury of techniques and strategies all carefully selected to support the design of a deeper, more creative and more expansive curriculum. Together with Leah Crawford and Verity Jones, Bob has compiled this rich resource to help teachers enhance their learners' engagement with challenging texts and develop their writing skills as budding wordsmiths. It includes 15 ready-to-use units of work covering a range of inspiring poetry and prose from across the literary tradition, complete with vivid illustrations by Victoria Cox. Bob, Leah and Verity's innovative ideas on theory, best practice and how to cultivate a pioneering classroom spirit are all integrated into the lesson suggestions, which have been designed for both the teacher's and the learners' immediate benefit. Together they empower teachers to explore with their learners the scope and depth of literature capable of inspiring high standards and instilling a love of language in its many forms. Furthermore, they help teachers to lay down intricate curricular pathways that will prompt their pupils to better enjoy literature, read and analyse texts with a greater sense of curiosity, and write with more originality. The book includes a great range of texts both as the core of each unit and as link reading, incorporating some contemporary texts to show how past and present co-exist - and how various literary styles can be taught using similar principles, all of which are open to further adaptation. The authors have also suggested key concepts around which the curriculum can be built, with the units providing examples with which you can work. All of the extracts and illustrations you will need in order to begin opening doors in your classroom are downloadable, and the book also includes a helpful glossary of key terms.

This introduction to the tools required for literary study provides all the skills, background and critical knowledge which students require to approach their study of literature with confidence.

This book revisits one of the defining judicial engagements in English legal history. It provides a fresh account of the years 1606 to 1616 which witnessed a series of increasingly volatile confrontations between, on the one side, King James I and his Attorney-General, Sir Francis Bacon, and on the other, Sir Edward Coke, successively Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Lord Chief Justice. At the heart of the dispute were differing opinions regarding the nature of kingship and the reach of prerogative in reformation England. Appreciating the longer context, in the summer of 1616 King James appealed for a reformation of law and constitution to complement the reformation of his Church. Later historians would discern in these debates the seeding of a century of revolution, followed by another four centuries of reform. This book ventures the further thought that the arguments which echoed around Westminster Hall in the first years of the seventeenth century have lost little of their resonance half a millennium on. Breaks with Rome are little easier to 'get done', the margins of executive governance little easier to draw.