First published in 1987, this is a comprehensive analysis of the rise of the British Press in the eighteenth century, as a component of the understanding of eighteenth century political and social history. Professor Black considers the reasons for the growth of the "print culture" and the relations of newspapers to magazines and pamphlets; the mechanics of circulation; and chronological developments. Extensively illustrated with quotations from newspapers of the time, the book is a lively as well as original and informative treatment of a topic that must remain of first importance for the literate historian.

First Published in 1967. Written in 1908, this essay is a study in eighteenth-century English literature. The aim is to give a clear and accurate description of a distinct component part of eighteenth century English fiction in its relation to its French sources and to the general current of English thought. The oriental fiction that was not original in English came, almost without exception, from French imitations or translations of genuine oriental tales; hence, as a study in comparative literature, a consideration of the oriental tale in England during the eighteenth century possesses distinct interest.

Death and the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel demonstrates that archives continually speak to the period's rising funeral and mourning culture, as well as the increasing commodification of death and mourning typically associated with nineteenth-century practices. Drawing on a variety of historical discourses--such as wills, undertaking histories, medical treatises and textbooks, anatomical studies, philosophical treatises, and religious tracts and sermons--the book contributes to a fuller understanding of the history of death in the Enlightenment and its narrative transformation. Death and the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel not only offers new insights about the effect of a growing secularization and commodification of death on the culture and its productions, but also fills critical gaps in the history of death, using narrative as a distinct literary marker. As anatomists dissected, undertakers preserved, jewelers encased, and artists figured the corpse, so too the novelist portrayed bodily artifacts. Why are these morbid forms of materiality entombed in the novel? Jolene Zigarovich addresses this complex question by claiming that the body itself--its parts, or its preserved representation--functioned as secular memento, suggesting that preserved remains became symbols of individuality and subjectivity. To support the conception that in this period notions of self and knowing center upon theories of the tactile and material, the chapters are organized around sensory conceptions and bodily materials such as touch, preserved flesh, bowel, heart, wax, hair, and bone. Including numerous visual examples, the book also argues that the relic represents the slippage between corpse and treasure, sentimentality and materialism, and corporeal fetish and aesthetic accessory. Zigarovich's analysis compels us to reassess the eighteenth-century response to and representation of the dead and dead-like body, and its material purpose and use in fiction. In a broader framework, Death and the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel also narrates a history of the novel that speaks to the cultural formation of modern individualism.

Explores a vital aspect of British Romanticism, the role of illustration in Romantic-era literary texts and visual culture.

The Pleasures of the Imagination examines the birth and development of English "high culture" in the eighteenth century. It charts the growth of a literary and artistic world fostered by publishers, theatrical and musical impresarios, picture dealers and auctioneers, and presented to th public in coffee-houses, concert halls, libraries, theatres and pleasure gardens. In 1660, there were few professional authors, musicians and painters, no public concert series, galleries, newspaper critics or reviews. By the dawn of the nineteenth century they were all aprt of the cultural life of the nation. John Brewer's enthralling book explains how this happened and recreates the world in which the great works of English eighteenth-century art were made. Its purpose is to show how literature, painting, music and the theatre were communicated to a public increasingly avid for them. It explores the alleys and garrets of Grub Street, rummages the shelves of bookshops and libraries, peers through printsellers' shop windows and into artists' studios, and slips behind the scenes at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. It takes us out of Gay and Boswell's London to visit the debating clubs, poetry circles, ballrooms, concert halls, music festivals, theatres and assemblies that made the culture of English provincial towns, and shows us how the national landscape became one of Britain's greatest cultural treasures. It reveals to us a picture of English artistic and literary life in the eighteenth century less familiar, but more suprising, more various and more convincing than any we have seen before.

The history of English news discourse is characterised by intriguing multilevel developments, and the present cannot be separated from them. For example, audience engagement is by no means an invention of the digital age. This collection highlights major topics that range from newspaper genres like sports reports, advertisements and comic strips to a variety of news practices. All contributions view news discourse in a specific historical period or across time and relate language features to their sociohistorical contexts and changing ideologies. The varying needs and expectations of the newspaper producers, writers and readers, and even news agents, are taken into account. The articles use interdisciplinary study methods and move at interfaces between sociolinguistics, journalism, semiotics, literary theory, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics and sociology.

With the growth of popular literary forms, particularly the periodical, during the eighteenth century, women began to assume an unprecedented place in print culture as readers and writers. Yet at the same time the very textual practices of that culture inscribed women within an increasingly restrictive and oppressive set of representations. First published in 1989, this title examines the emergence and dramatic growth of periodical literature, showing how the journals solicited women as subscribers and contributors, whilst also attempting to regulate their conduct through the promotion of exemplary feminine types. By enclosing its female readership within a discourse that defined women in terms of love, matrimony, the family, and the home, the English periodical became one of the main linguistic sites for the construction of the eighteenth-century ideology of domestic womanhood. Based on the close scrutiny of the popular periodical press between 1690 and 1760, including journals such as the Athenian Mercury, the Tatler, and the Spectator, this study will be of particular value to any student of the relationship between women and print culture, the development of women's magazines, and the study of literary audiences.

An introduction to the evangelical revival of the 18th and early 19th century, important as a cultural force during that period. The book is intended for A' level and undergraduate courses on the 18th century.

This companion addresses the history of crime and punishment through entries by expert contributors that select and define the central vocabulary and terminology for the study of the history of crime and punishment. Organized alphabetically, with useful cross-references and bibliographies, it goes beyond mere definitions to offer rigorous critical analysis of the terms and their use within the field, both now and in the past. It will be essential to students, researchers, and teachers in the field.