This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.

'This very informative and in-depth book about rabbits has some excellent and entertaining chapters on the rabbit in art, literature, myth, and popular culture, which I particularly enjoyed.' Libby Joy | The Beatrix Potter Society An Affectionate History of Nature's Most Surprising Species. Independent and resourceful, rabbits represent balance, rebirth, speed, fertility, resurrection, abundance, creativity, magic, and harmony. Yet they are much more than symbols, they are unique individuals with complex inner lives. In The Way of the Rabbit, Mark Hawthorne immerses himself in their world, exploring their habitats and evolution, their role in legend and literature, their place in popular culture, their fascinating biology, and, of course, their significance as household companions. It’s an entertaining journey through myth and history that celebrates the rabbit’s spirit, courage, friendships, and playfulness.

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Whether a secularized morality, biblical worldview, or unstated set of mores, the Victorian period can and always will be distinguished from those before and after for its pervasive sense of the "proper way" of thinking, speaking, doing, and acting. Animals in literature taught Victorian children how to be behave. If you are a postmodern posthumanist, you might argue, "But the animals in literature did not write their own accounts." Animal characters may be the creations of writers’ imagination, but animals did and do exist in their own right, as did and do humans. The original essays in Animals and Their Children in Victorian explore the representation of animals in children’s literature by resisting an anthropomorphized perception of them. Instead of focusing on the domestication of animals, this book analyzes how animals in literature "civilize" children, teaching them how to get along with fellow creatures—both human and nonhuman.

American national trade bibliography.