This study breaks new ground surveying the origins of the Gothic chapbook, its publishers and authors, in order to establish conclusively the impact these pamphlets had on the development of the Gothic genre. Considered the illegitimate offspring of the Gothic novel, the lowly chapbook flooded the market in the late eighteenth century, creating a separate and distinct secondary market for tales of terror. The trade was driven by a handful of individuals who were booksellers and dealers, circulating library proprietors, stationers, and small publishers – what they produced were more than four hundred chapbooks, bluebooks and shilling shockers containing Gothic tales from magazines, redactions of popular novels, extractions of entire inset tales, and original tales of terror. This book responds to the urgent and pressing need to contextualise the Gothic chapbook in ascertaining a more concise and comprehensive view of the entire Gothic genre.

The book includes six chapters that cover Virginia history from initial settlement through the 20th century plus one that deals with the important role of underwater archaeology. Written by prominent archaeologists with research experience in their respective topic areas, the chapters consider important issues of Virginia history and consider how the discipline of historic archaeology has addressed them and needs to address them . Changes in research strategy over time are discussed , and recommendations are made concerning the need to recognize the diverse and often differing roles and impacts that characterized the different regions of Virginia over the course of its historic past. Significant issues in Virginia history needing greater study are identified.

While in London in 1705, Robert Beverley wrote and published The History and Present State of Virginia, one of the earliest printed English-language histories about North America by an author born there. Like his brother-in-law William Byrd II, Beverley was a scion of Virginia's planter elite, personally ambitious and at odds with royal governors in the colony. As a native-born American--most famously claiming "I am an Indian--he provided English readers with the first thoroughgoing account of the province's past, natural history, Indians, and current politics and society. In this new edition, Susan Scott Parrish situates Beverley and his History in the context of the metropolitan-provincial political and cultural issues of his day and explores the many contradictions embedded in his narrative. Parrish's introduction and the accompanying annotation, along with a fresh transcription of the 1705 publication and a more comprehensive comparison of emendations in the 1722 edition, will open Beverley's History to new, twenty-first-century readings by students of transatlantic history, colonialism, natural science, literature, and ethnohistory.