This book explores literary culture in England between 1630 and 1700, focusing on connections between material, epistemic, and political conditions of literary writing and reading. In a number of case studies and close readings, it presents the seventeenth century as a period of change that saw a fundamental shift towards a new cultural configuration: neoclassicism. This shift affected a wide array of social practices and institutions, from poetry to politics and from epistemology to civility.

An outstanding group of international Shelley scholars takes full advantage of new editions and the evidence of notebooks, paying particular attention to texts that have been neglected or underestimated. Revaluations of the verse letter, plays, satire, pamphlets, prose essays, political verse, romance, prefaces, translations, art representations, fragments and early writings show how Victorian taste and culture harmed Shelley's reputation. The collection is sure to inspire future reappraisals of Shelley's work.

The intense and concentrated revolution in poetic taste in seventeenth-century England is traced from Donne's idiom--subtle, complex, and shot through with unconventional moods--to the idiom of Dryden, which follows the taste for clarity, harmony, and propriety. More than poetry is involved in this revolt. The cultural and intellectual forces of the century made a change in taste inevitable by altering man's way of looking at himself and his world. Originally published in 1940. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

The short life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was as adventurous as almost anything in his fiction: his travels, illness, struggles to become a writer, relationships with his volatile wife and step-family, friendships and quarrels have fascinated readers for over a century. In his time he was both engineer and aesthete, dutiful son and reckless lover, Scotsman and South Sea Islander, Covenanter and atheist. Stevenson's books, including Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped, have achieved world fame; others -- The Master of Ballantrae, A Child's Garden of Verses, Travels with a Donkey -- remain all-time favourites.