Derived from the parent Guide to Literature in English, this volume offers in concise form over 4,000 entries on literature in English from cultures throughout the world. Writers and major works from the UK and the USA are represented, as are those from Canada, the Caribbean, Australia, India, and Africa. The coverage is broad - from the classics of English literature to the best of modern writing. Additionally, the Guide has a wealth of entries on literary movements, groups or schools in literature and criticism, literary magazines, genres and sub-genres, critical concepts, and rhetorical terms.

Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America - a history of colonizing, work and civic identity from the beginnings of English presence on the mainland until the Civil War. It is a history of migrants and migrations, of colonizers and colonized, of households and servitude and slavery, and of the freedom all craved and some found. Above all it is a history of the law that framed the entire process. Freedom Bound tells how colonies were planted in occupied territories, how they were populated with migrants - free and unfree - to do the work of colonizing and how the newcomers secured possession. It tells of the new civic lives that seemed possible in new commonwealths and of the constraints that kept many from enjoying them. It follows the story long past the end of the eighteenth century until the American Civil War, when - just for a moment - it seemed that freedom might finally be unbound.

The Americas appear as an evocative setting in more than half of Daniel Defoe's novels, and often offer a new beginning for his characters. In the first full-length study of Defoe and colonialism, Dennis Todd explores why the New World loomed so large in Defoe's imagination. By focusing on the historical contexts that informed Defoe's depiction of American Indians, African slaves, and white indentured servants, Dennis Todd investigates the colonial assumptions that shaped his novels and, at the same time, uncovers how Defoe used details of the American experience in complex, often figurative ways to explore the psychological bases of the profound conversions and transformations that his heroes and heroines undergo. And by examining what Defoe knew and did not know about America, what he falsely believed and what he knowingly falsified, Defoe's America probes the doubts, hesitancies, and contradictions he had about the colonial project he so fervently promoted.

Defoe's era saw much popular interest in the instructional handbook and behaviour manual. Bringing together a collection of Daniel Defoe's most important and influential instructional treatises, this work serves as an addition to the "Works of Daniel Defoe" from the "Pickering Masters" series.

This book offers a detailed examination of the living arrangements and material circumstances of the poor betweeen 1650 and 1850. Chapters investigate poor households in urban, rural and metropolitan contexts, and contribute to wider investigations into British economic and social conditions in the long Eighteenth century.

A highly conscious wordsmith, Daniel Defoe used expository styles in his fiction and non-fiction that reflected his ability to perceive material and intellectual phenomena from opposing, but not contradictory perspectives. Moreover, the boundaries of genre within his wide-ranging oeuvre can prove highly fluid. In this study, Robert James Merrett approaches Defoe's body of work using interdisciplinary methods that recognize dialectic in his verbal creativity and cognitive awareness. Examining more than ninety of Defoe's works, Merrett contends that this author's literariness exploits a conscious dialogue that fosters the reciprocity of traditional and progressive authorial procedures. Along the way, he discusses Defoe's lexical and semantic sensibility, his rhetorical and aesthetic theories, his contrarian theology, and more. Merrett proposes that Defoe's contrarian outlook celebrates a view of consciousness that acknowledges the brain's bipartite structure, and in so doing illustrates how cognitive science may be applied to further explorations of narrative art.

The “meticulously researched, elegantly argued and deeply humane” sequel to the landmark volume of social history, The Making of the English Working Class (The New York Times Book Review). This remarkable study investigates the gradual disappearance of a range of cultural customs against the backdrop of the great upheavals of the eighteenth century. As villagers were subjected to a legal system increasingly hostile to custom, they tried both to resist and to preserve tradition, becoming, as E. P. Thompson explains, “rebellious, but rebellious in defense of custom.” Although some historians have written of riotous peasants of England and Wales as if they were mainly a problem for magistrates and governments, for Thompson it is the rulers, landowners, and governments who were a problem for the people, whose exuberant culture preceded the formation of working-class institutions and consciousness. Essential reading for all those intrigued by English history, Customs in Common has a special relevance today, as traditional economies are being replaced by market economies throughout the world. The rich scholarship and depth of insight in Thompson’s work offer many clues to understanding contemporary changes around the globe. “[This] long-awaited collection . . . is a signal contribution . . . [from] the person most responsible for inspiring the revival of American labor history during the past thirty years.” —The Nation “This book signals the return to historical writing of one of the most eloquent, powerful and independent voices of our time. At his best he is capable of a passionate, sardonic eloquence which is unequalled.” —The Observer