New Legends of England examines a previously unrecognized phenomenon of fifteenth-century English literary culture: the proliferation of vernacular Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Catherine Sanok argues these texts use literary experimentation to explore overlapping forms of secular and religious community.

Focusing on the bizarre, a collection of entertaining, illustrated travel guides features a host of oddball curiosities, ghosts and haunted places, local legends, cursed roads, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions that can be found in England.

'Marvellous and menacing.' Daily Mail 'The shadow from which I thought I had unshackled myself has returned. Whether this Horror is real or merely the handiwork of my imagination I cannot say. Nor can I say which of these possibilities disturbs me more.' from 'The Dark Thread' by Graeme Macrae Burne From the legends of King Arthur embedded in the rocky splendour of Tintagel to the folklore and mysticism of Stonehenge, English Heritage sites are often closely linked to native English myths. Following on from the bestselling ghost story anthology Eight Ghosts, this is a new collection of stories inspired by the legends and tales that swirl through the history of eight ancient historical sites. Including an essay by James Kidd on the importance of myth to our landscape and our fiction, and an English Heritage survey of sites and associated legends, These Our Monsters is an evocative collection that brings new voices and fresh creative alchemy to our storytelling heritage. 'Nobody believes you when you talk about the whispering. Oh, Monny, you are funny, they say, you've such an imagination. There's a lot they don't believe.' from 'The Hand Under the Stone' by Sarah Hall 'This varied collection scratches the soil of the country to dig up some of the fairy tales and fantasies that have helped form the English identity.' Financial Times The atmospheric locations: Edward Carey - Bury St Edmunds Abbey Sarah Hall - Castlerigg and other stone circles Paul Kingsnorth - Stonehenge Alison MacLeod - Down House Graeme Macrae Burnet - Whitby Abbey Sarah Moss - Berwick Castle Fiona Mozley - Carlisle Castle Adam Thorpe - Tintagel Castle With original black-and-white illustrations by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.

New England's history is marked with witch executions, curses and an untold number of cemeteries hiding mysteries beneath their stones. In this sometimes harsh landscape, the truth is often stranger than fiction. Examine the footprints burned into the ledge of Devil's Foot Rock in Rhode Island. Spend a night at the Kennebunk Inn in Maine, where the mischievous specter of Silas Perkins still resides. Traverse an old dirt road near Sterling, Connecticut, where the Darn Man's frozen body was uncovered in 1863. Authors Thomas D'Agostino and Arlene Nicholson uncover the history behind the region's best-kept secrets and lore. As you flip through these pages of New England's legends, tread lightly--you just might find a story that will follow you home.

Where can you find the 'Devil's footprints'? What happened at the 'hangman's stone'? Did Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, ever really exist? Where was King Arthur laid to rest? Bringing together tales of hauntings, highwaymen, family curses and lovers' leaps, this magnificent guide will take you on a magical journey through England's legendary past.

The age of miracles was not yet past on the Shakespearean stage. In the first book-length study of the English saint play across the Reformation divide, The Renaissance of the Saints after Reform recovers the surprisingly long theatrical life of the saints from a tenth-century monastery to the Restoration stage. Through a reassessment of archival records of performance and religious change, this book challenges the established history of the saint play as a product of medieval devotional culture that ended with the national conversion to Protestantism during the Reformation. Not only did saints in performance frequently diverge from the narratives of devotional literature during the Middle Ages but also saints made a spectacular reappearance in the theatre of the early modern era. In the rupture between those two eras, the English church separated itself from the Cult of the Saints, and saints disappeared from public view until sainthood transformed from a matter of theology into a matter of theatricality. Early modern saint plays document a post-Reformation culture committed to saints-but not all saints. Certain ancient martyrs and British saints returned to the liturgical calendar in the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer. This limited inventory performed an initial de-Catholicization of these saints, but it did not recover their lives. Instead, the theatre produced new lives of the saints for the English public. A period of experimentation with saints and devils in the 1590s was followed by unprecedented innovation throughout the Stuart era. This book traces the transformation of sainthood in early modern drama from ambiguous supernatural association and negotiated patronage to a renaissance of miraculous theatricality and sacred place-making. By excavating saints in plays by Shakespeare, Heywood, Dekker, Massinger, and Rowley as well as plays authored by relatively unknown dramatists, this book reconfigures how we think about the legacy of late medieval religious culture, the impact of Reformation change on literary texts and social practices, and the development of English theatre and drama.