By the time Ian Watt published The Rise of the Novel. in 1957, it was clear that many women novelists before Jane Austen had been overlooked in critical studies of literature and that some of them had been completely forgotten by the reading public. In this book, Brian Corman explores the question of how and why this came about. Corman provides a systematic survey of the reputations of early women novelists as canons of the novel developed over a period of roughly two hundred year...

The ten plays in this new collection show both the continuity and the changes in comedy over the course of the Restoration and eighteenth century. Each play includes its original prologue and epilogue, as well as an historical introduction and full annotation. The editor’s Introduction provides a rich historical and literary context for the plays’ composition and production. A glossary of frequently used words likely to be unfamiliar to general readers is also included.

The cultural highlights of the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) have long been overlooked. However, recent scholarship, including the present volume, is demonstrating that Anne has been seriously underestimated, both as a person, and as a monarch, and that there was much cultural activity of note in what might be called an interim period, coming after the deaths of Dryden and Purcell but before the blossoming of Pope and Handel, after the glories of Baroque architecture but before the trium...

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Daniel Defoe’.Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Defoe includ...

The Vicar of Wakefield, written in 1761 and 1762, was published in 1766, and was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians, cited in a number of major works of that time, including George Eliot's Middlemarch, Jane Austen's Emma, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins, Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and Villette, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and in Johann Wolfgang von...

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America**, shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies written that year—King Lear, Macbeth,** and Antony and Cleopatra. **“**The Year of Lear is irresistible—a banquet of wisdom” (

This comprehensive eBook presents the complete fictional works of Henry Fielding, with numerous illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Fielding's life and works* Concise introductions to the novels and other texts* ALL the novels, with individual contents tables* Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts*...

Regarded by some as the leading novelist of the Eighteenth Century, Samuel Richardson is best known for his epistolary novels, which changed the course of English literature. This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works of Samuel Richardson, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Richardson’s life and wor...

An “extraordinarily brilliant” and “pleasurably naughty” (André Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be.The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,”...

The First part of PAMELA met with a success greatly exceeding the most sanguine expectations: and the Editor hopes, that the Letters which compose this Part will be found equally written to NATURE, avoiding all romantic nights, improbable surprises, and irrational machinery; and the passions are touched, where requisite; and rules, equally new and practicable, inculcated throughout the whole, for the general conduct of life; and, therefore, he flatters himself, that they may expect the goo...

In her famous speech to rouse the English troops staking out Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames during the Spanish Armada's campaign, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed, "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Whether or not the transcription is accurate, the persistent attribution of this provocative statement to England's most studied and celebrated queen illustrates some of the contradictions and cultural anxieties that dom...

Samuel Richardson was an English author best known for his epistolary novels. Richardson was one of the first writers of epistolary novels and also one of the most famous. This edition of Sir Charles Grandison includes a table of contents.