'Oliver Goldfinch; or, The Hypocrite' is a historical novel by Emerson Bennett. It is set on a dark and stormy; conveying but a faint idea of what the night was in reality. The clouds were pall black, and charged with a vapor which, freezing as it descended, spread an icy mantle over everything exposed. The wind was easterly and fierce, and drove the sleety hail with a velocity that made it anything but pleasant to be abroad. Signs creaked, windows rattled, lamps flickered and became dim, casting here and there long ghostly shadows, that seemed to dance fantastically to the music of the rushing winds, as they whistled through some crevice, moaned down some chimney, or howled along some deserted alley on their mad career. It was, take it all in all, a dismal night, and such an one as, with a comfortable shelter over our heads and a cheerful fire before us, is apt to make us thank God we are not forced to be abroad like the poor houseless wretches who have no place to lay their heads. It is too much the case at such times, that we congratulate ourselves on being far better off than they, without taking into consideration it is our duty, as human beings, to render them as comfortable as our circumstances will permit. But who thinks of the poor? God cares for them, say the rich, and that is enough.

"Romantic fiction, set in the central prairies and involving a young explorer and trapper, Charles, who falls in love with the half-Delaware daughter of a French trapper. Includes Pawnee, Delaware and Blackfeet characters."--Google Books.

This volume represents a timely collective review and assessment of what it is we do when we do English historical pragmatics or historical discourse analysis. The context for the volume is a critical assessment of the assumptions and practices defining the body of research conducted on the history of the English language from the perspective of historical pragmatics, broadly construed. The aim of the volume is to engage with matters of approach and method from different perspectives; accordingly, the contributions offer insights into earlier communicative practices, registers, and linguistic functions as gleaned from historical discourse. The essays are grouped according to their orientations within the scope of the study of language and meaning in historical texts, both literary and non-literary. The structure of the volume thus represents a critical convergence of traditions of reading texts and analyzing discourse and this in turn exposes key questions about the methods and the outcomes of such readings or analyses. The volume contributes to the growing maturity of historical pragmatic research approaches as it exemplifies and extends the range of approaches and methods that dominate the research enterprise. Contributors are prominent international scholars in the fields of linguistics, literature, and philology: Dawn Archer, Birte Bös, Laurel Brinton, Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti, James Fitzmaurice, Susan Fitzmaurice, Monika Fludernik, Andreas Jucker, Thomas Kohnen, Ursula Lenker, Lynne Magnusson, and Irma Taavitsainen.

The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing. Now back in print, the volume includes a new foreword by historian Sean Wilentz that reveals the book's impact and influence. A magisterial work of criticism and cultural history, Beneath the American Renaissance will fascinate anyone interested in the genesis of America's most significant literary epoch and the iconic figures who defined it.