Examines the painted body of the actor on the early modern stage. Inventions of the Skin illuminates a history of the stage technology of paint that extends backward to the 1460s York cycle and forward to the 1630s. Organized as a series of studies, the four chapters of this book examine goldface and divinity in York's Corpus Christi play, with special attention to the pageant representing The Transfiguration of Christ; bloodiness in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, specifically blood's unexpected role as a device for disguise in plays such as Look About You (anon.) and Shakespeare's Coriolanus; racial masquerade within seventeenth-century court performances and popular plays, from Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness to William Berkeley's The Lost Lady; and finally whiteface, death, and stoniness"e; in Thomas Middleton's The Second Maiden's Tragedy and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Recovering a crucial grammar of theatrical representation, this book argues that the onstage embodiment of characters--not just the words written for them to speak--forms an important and overlooked aspect of stage representation.

This book challenges the narrative of Shakespeare's 'bare' stage by looking at the 'ground zero' of early modern theatrical representation: the painted body of the actor. It questions the boundaries of the period categories 'mediaeval' and 'early modern' by demonstrating important continuities in theatrical labour and theatrical materials from mediaeval cycle drama through to the popular and courtly drama of the 1630s.

The world needs inventors to come up with new creations, but some of their ideas are just plain bizarre. Readers of this captivating book will be thrilled to learn about some of the craziest beauty inventions that people have come up with. From strange inventions to help people style their hair to weird makeup inventions, imaginative readers will love learning the stories behind how people came up with these ideas and how the inventions worked, or didn't. This high-interest volume will engage readers, and perhaps leave some wanting to design an invention of their own.

From the scientific discoveries made by the Indigenous Australians living thousands of years ago, right up to the wonders of Wi-Fi, the technology that Australians continue to invent is used by people around the world. Whether it's medicines from local plants, or ways to keep babies safe while travelling in cars, there are lots of inventions to find out about in this book. How much do you really know about Australia? Did you know that the whole continent is on the move, or that Aussies were the first to use penicillin? Dip in anywhere throughout this series to find masses of mini articles on everything you could want to know about Australia.