Presents a two-volume A to Z reference on English authors from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, providing information about major figures, key schools and genres, biographical information, author publications and some critical analyses.

The two-volume Encyclopedia of British Writers: 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries provides essential, curriculum-based information on approximately 600 major British writers - from William Shakespeare and John Milton to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope - who flourished in Britain between the 16th and the 18th centuries. All accessible entries include important details about the author's life, a synopsis of the writer's major works, and suggestions for further reading. 16th- and 17th-Century British Writers; This volume covers Aphra Behn, John Bunyan, Robert Burton, Thomas Campion, Margaret Cavendish, Richard Crashaw, Samuel Daniel, John Dryden, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Andrew Marvell, John Milton, Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Suckling, Henry Vaughan, Izaak Walton, Mary Wroth, Thomas Wyatt, and many more. 18th-Century British Writers; This volume covers George Berkeley, James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Robert Burns, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, John Gay, Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Gray, David Hume, Samuel Johnson, Mary Wortley Montagu, Alexander Pope, Matthew Prior, Ann Radcliffe, Christopher Smart, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, Horace Walpole, Mary Wollstonecraft, and many more.

The heavens and hells of the world’s religions and the “far, far away” legends cannot be seen or visited, but they remain an integral part of culture and history. This encyclopedia catalogs more than 800 imaginary and mythological lands from all over the world, including fairy realms, settings from Arthurian lore, and kingdoms found in fairy tales and political and philosophical works, including Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and Plato’s Atlantis. From al A’raf, the limbo of Islam, to Zulal, one of the many streams that run through Paradise, entries give the literary origin of each site, explain its cultural context, and describe its topical features, listing variations on names when applicable. Cross-referenced for ease of use, this compendium will prove useful to scholars, researchers or anyone wishing to tour the unseen landscapes of myth and legend.

A broad-ranging exploration of the everyday lives of women—from social calls to medical needs—during one of English history’s most fascinating periods. Maids, wives, and widows were the official classifications of women according to English law in the early modern era, immediately following the medieval period. In this fascinating study of the time, historian Sara Read shows “how varied, rich, joyous, and sociable early modern women’s lives were, not to mention just how busy or difficult they could be” (Read, from the introduction). Read delves into how these women filled their days, including vivid details of what they liked to eat and drink, what jobs they held, and how they raised their children. With chapters devoted to beauty regimes, fashion, and literature, the book examines the cultural and domestic aspects of life, as well as how women understood and dealt with their monthly periods and what it was like to give birth in a time before modern obstetric care was available. Maids, Wives, Widows also highlights key moments in women’s history such as the 1671 publication of the first midwifery guide by Jane Sharp; the turmoil caused by the Civil Wars of the 1640s; the various new religious sects in which women participated to a surprising extent; and many others. Also scrutinized are cases of notorious criminals such as murderer Sarah Malcolm and confidence trickster Mary Toft who pretended to give birth to rabbits.

Maids, Wives, Widows is a lively exploration of the everyday lives of women in early modern England, from 1540-1740. The book uncovers details of how women filled their days, what they liked to eat and drink, what jobs they held, and how they raised their children. With chapters devoted to beauty regimes, fashion, and literature, the book also examines the cultural as well as the domestic aspect of early modern women's lives. Further, the book answers questions such as how women understood and dealt with their monthly periods and what it was like to give birth in a time before modern obstetric care was available.?The book also highlights key moments in women's history such as the publication in 1671, of the first midwifery guide by an English woman, Jane Sharp. The turmoil caused by the Civil Wars of the 1640s gave rise to a number of religious sects in which women participated to a surprising extent and some of their stories are included in this book. Also scrutinised are cases of notorious criminals such as murderer Sarah Malcolm and confidence trickster Mary Toft who pretended to give birth to rabbits.??Overall the book describes the experiences of women over a two hundred year period noting the changes and continuities of daily life during this fascinating era.

The Planetary Humanism of European Women’s Science Fiction argues that utopian science fiction written by European women has, since the seventeenth century, played an important role in exploring the racial and gender possibilities of the outer limits of the humanist imagination. This book focuses on six works of science fiction from the UK, France, Spain, and Italy: Jennifer Marie Brissett’s Elysium; Nicoletta Vallorani’s Sulla Sabbia di Sur and Il Cuore Finto di DR; Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya Universe series; Elia Barcelo’s Consecuencias Naturales; and Historias del Crazy Bar, a collection of stories by Lola Robles and Maria Concepcion Regueiro. It sets these in conversation with key gender and critical race scholars: Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Gilroy, and Jack Halberstam. It asserts that a key concern for feminism, anti- racism, and science fiction now is to seek inventive ways of returning to the question of the human in the context of increasing racial and gender divisions. Offering unique access to contemporary and historical women writers who have mobilised the utopian imagination to rethink the human, this book is of use to those conducting research in Gender Studies, Philosophy, History, and Literature.

Arranged in alphabetical order, these 5 volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America with over 2300 entries.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.