Studies of the eighteenth-century periodical have long tended to understand the form according to the period’s own insistence on adhering to and promoting politeness. In contrast, this collection reads for impoliteness, revealing a more nuanced, granular, and dynamic view of eighteenth-century periodicals such as Addison and Steele’s popular The Spectator, and a fuller sense of their value within the societies that produced and consumed them. By inverting the tra...

Stage Mothers explores the connections between motherhood and the theater both on and off stage throughout the long eighteenth century. Although the realities of eighteenth-century motherhood and representations of maternity have recently been investigated in relation to the novel, social history, and political economy, the idea of motherhood and its connection to the theatre as a professional, material, literary, and cultural site has received little critical attention. The essays in this...

Exploring how 18th-century forms and narrative are taken-up, recycled and re-visioned in contemporary media, this book asks which histories are told and by whom. Through essays from international and multidisciplinary scholars and interviews with industry professionals, The 18th Century Today asks what function modern media performs when depicting the 18th century in our current world. Can such works speak to perceived 18th-century ideas and values and, simultaneo...

Celebrity Across the Channel, 1750-1850 is the first book to study and compare the concept of celebrity in France and Britain from 1750 to 1850 as the two countries transformed into the states we recognize today. It offers a transnational perspective by placing in dialogue the growing fields of celebrity studies in the two countries, especially by engaging with Antoine Lilti’s seminal work, The Invention of Celebrity, translated into English in 2017. With contributions fr...

'Shakespeare's play is death-haunted from the start, and its self-glorifying lovers exist in a dream of passion' GuardianA battle-hardened soldier, Antony is one of the three leaders of the Roman world. But he is also a man in the grip of an all-consuming passion for the tempestuous and alluring queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. And when their life of pleasure together is threatened by encroaching politics, the conflict between love and duty has devastating consequences. A tragic...

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR! - Publishers Weekly"Simultaneously heart-pounding and hilarious, Robyn Schneider gives us a veritable romp through Camelot fueled by adventure and romance."—Kerri Maniscalco, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Kingdom of the Wicked and Stalking Jack the RipperChanneling the modern humor of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, bestselling author...

Welcome back to the great kingdom of Camelot! Scandal, betrayal, and courtly crushes abound in this highly anticipated sequel to The Other Merlin, one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year!Emry Merlin should be living her best life as a wizard’s apprentice. Now that she no longer has to pretend to be her brother to study magic, she and Prince Arthur are closer than ever. Except King Uther has warned her to stay away from his son, and Emry’...

Sayeth it ain't so! The finale to the epic Emry Merlin trilogy is here, with all the sorcery, snark, and high stakes that made The Other Merlin one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year!Everything is finally going right for Emry Merlin. Now that Arthur is the king and her wayward magic is under control, she’s enjoying life as Camelot’s official court wizard—and as Arthur’s girlfriend.But when an unexpected visitor arrives at court,...

Friendship and Allegiance explores the concept of friendship as it was defined, contested and distorted by writers of the early eighteenth century. Setting well-known canonical texts (The Beggar's Opera, Gulliver's Travels) alongside lesser-known works, it portrays a literary world renegotiating the meaning of public and private virtue.

This book provides an expansive view of celebrity’s intimate dimensions. In the process, it offers a timely reassessment of how notions of private and public were negotiated by writers, readers, actors and audiences in the early to mid-eighteenth century. The essays assembled here explore the lives of a wide range of figures: actors and actresses, but also politicians, churchmen, authors and rogues; some who courted celebrity openly and others who seemed to achieve it almost inadvertently....