The selection of writing in this anthology brings alive the excitement, wit, and exuberance of the Restoration and eighteenth century.

The selections from 132 authors in this anthology represent gender, social class, and racial and national origin as inclusively as possible, providing both greater context for canonical works and a sense of the era’s richness and diversity. In terms of genre, poetry, non-fiction prose, philosophy, educational writing, and prose fiction are included. Geographically, America, Canada, Australia, India, and Africa are represented along with Britain, emphasizing Romantic literature as a world literature. Biographical headnotes, explanatory footnotes, and an extensive bibliography clarify and illuminate the texts for readers.

The focus of the volume, in addition to standard features such as the bibliographical update on 15th-c. theater, is on late-medieval authors as literary critics. Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposium, Fifteenth-Century Studies has appeared annually since then. It publishes essays on all aspects of life in the fifteenth century, including literature, drama, history, philosophy, art, music, religion, science, and ritual and custom. The editors strive to do justice to the most contested medieval century, a period that has long been the stepchild of research. The fifteenthcentury defies consensus on fundamental issues: some scholars dispute, in fact, whether it belonged to the middle ages at all, arguing that it was a period of transition, a passage to modern times. At issue, therefore, is the verytenor of an age that stood under the influence of Gutenberg, Columbus, the Devotio Moderna, and Humanism. Along with the standard updating of bibliography on 15th-c. theater, this volume is devoted to research on late-medieval authors as literary critics. Thus, for the historian as well as the writer of fiction, the tenuous limits between truth and fantasy (and the role of doubt) are investigated. If there are several eyewitness accounts of an event, which one can be trusted? Medieval memorialists sometimes became advisors to princes and used a rhetoric of careful persuasion. Values such as chivalry, courtly love, and kingly self-representation come up for discussion here.Several essays ponder the structure of poetic forms and popular genres, and others consider more factual topics such as incunabula on medications, religious literature in the vernacular for everyday use, a student's notebook on magic, and late medieval merchants, money, and trade. Contributors: Edelgard DuBruck, Karen Casebier, Emma J. Cayley, Albrecht Classen, Michael G. Cornelius, Jean Dufornet, Catherine Emerson, Leonardas V. Gerulaitis, Kenneth Hodges, Sharon M. Loewald, Luca Pierdominici, Michel J. Raby, Elizabeth I. Wade. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita in the Modern Languages Department at Marygrove College in Detroit; Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University-Dothan, Dothan, Alabama.

An introduction to and advice on book collecting with a glossary of terms and tips on how to identify first editions and estimated values for over 20,000 collectible books published in English (including translations) over the last three centuries-about half are literary titles in the broadest sense (novels, poetry, plays, mysteries, science fiction, and children's books); and the other half are non-fiction (Americana, travel and exploration, finance, cookbooks, color plate, medicine, science, photography, Mormonism, sports, et al).

Includes lists of publishers, booksellers and private book collectors.

"Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch is more than just a writing handbook; it’s a key to unlocking every writer’s innate creativity by offering countless paths to verbal expressiveness." —San Francisco Chronicle Great sentences pivot on great verbs. In Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, Constance Hale, best-selling author of Sin and Syntax, zeroes in on verbs that make bad writing sour and good writing sing. Each chapter in Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch features four sections: “Vex” tackles tough syntax, “Hex” debunks myths about verbs, “Smash” warns of bad writing habits, and “Smooch” showcases exemplary writing. A veteran journalist and writing teacher, Hale peppers her advice with pop-culture references and adapts her expertise for writers of every level. With examples ranging from the tangled clauses of Henry James and the piercing insight of Joan Didion to the punchy gerunds of the Coen brothers and the passive verbs of CEOs on trial, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch offers a reenergized take on the “little despot of the sentence.”