The Historical Romance explores the ways in which romance authors seek to represent our fantasies of life in the past. Examining how the cut-and-thrust swashbucklers of the 1930s gave way to female-orientated romances, Helen Hughes takes a comprehensive look at how romance authors have dealt with the turbulent question of female independence, and how traditional attitudes towards love, marriage and women's sexuality have been approached in more recent texts. Hughes also charts the ways in which the marketing of romance has developed, with the eventual explosion of the mass market and the blockbusting family sagas of the eighties. The Historical Romance unravels the formulaic and mythical nature of historical romance to provide a fascinating study of this highly popular genre.

The first book-length study of romance novels to focus on issues of sexuality rather than gender, Historical Romance Fiction moves the ongoing debate about the value and appeal of heterosexual romance onto new ground, testing the claims of cutting-edge critical theorists on everything from popular classics by Georgette Heyer, to recent 'bodice rippers,' to historical fiction by John Fowles and A.S. Byatt. Beginning with her nomination of 'I love you' as the romance novel's defining speech act, Lisa Fletcher engages closely with speech-act theory and recent studies of performativity. The range of texts serves to illustrate Fletcher's definition of historical romance as a fictional mode dependent on the force and familiarity of the speech act, 'I love you', and permits Fletcher to provide a detailed account of the genre's history and development in both its popular and 'literary' manifestations. Written from a feminist and anti-homophobic perspective, Fletcher's subtle arguments about the romantic speech act serve to demonstrate the genre's dependence on repetition ('Romance can only quote') and the shaky ground on which the romance's heterosexual premise rests. Her exploration of the subgenre of cross-dressing novels is especially revealing in this regard. With its deft mix of theoretical arguments and suggestive close readings, Fletcher's book will appeal to specialists in genre, speech act and performativity theory, and gender studies.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read! Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content: • An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series • An interview with Diana Gabaldon • An Outlander reader’s guide Praise for Outlander “Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle “History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News

In Cecilia Grant’s emotionally rich and deeply passionate Regency romance debut, a deal with a rumored rogue turns a proper young woman into . . . A Lady Awakened. Newly widowed and desperate to protect her estate and beloved servants from her malevolent brother-in-law, Martha Russell conceives a daring plan. Or rather, a daring plan to conceive. After all, if she has an heir on the way, her future will be secured. Forsaking all she knows of propriety, Martha approaches her neighbor, a London exile with a wicked reputation, and offers a strictly business proposition: a month of illicit interludes . . . for a fee. Theophilus Mirkwood ought to be insulted. Should be appalled. But how can he resist this siren in widow’s weeds, whose offer is simply too outrageously tempting to decline? Determined she’ll get her money’s worth, Theo endeavors to awaken this shamefully neglected beauty to the pleasures of the flesh—only to find her dead set against taking any enjoyment in the scandalous bargain. Surely she can’t resist him forever. But could a lady’s sweet surrender open their hearts to the most unexpected arrival of all . . . love?

The romance novel has the strange distinction of being the most popular but least respected of literary genres. While it remains consistently dominant in bookstores and on best-seller lists, it is also widely dismissed by the critical community. Scholars have alleged that romance novels help create subservient readers, who are largely women, by confining heroines to stories that ignore issues other than love and marriage. Pamela Regis argues that such critical studies fail to take into consideration the personal choice of readers, offer any true definition of the romance novel, or discuss the nature and scope of the genre. Presenting the counterclaim that the romance novel does not enslave women but, on the contrary, is about celebrating freedom and joy, Regis offers a definition that provides critics with an expanded vocabulary for discussing a genre that is both classic and contemporary, sexy and entertaining. Taking the stance that the popular romance novel is a work of literature with a brilliant pedigree, Regis asserts that it is also a very old, stable form. She traces the literary history of the romance novel from canonical works such as Richardson's Pamela through Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Brontë's Jane Eyre, and E. M. Hull's The Sheik, and then turns to more contemporary works such as the novels of Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, Janet Dailey, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Nora Roberts.

SOON TO BE A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES • “A majestic, melancholy, and beautiful novel” (The New Yorker), THE LEOPARD is one of the best-selling Italian novels of the twentieth century and an acclaimed masterpiece of world literature. This beautiful hardcover edition, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, also includes two short stories and a brief memoir of the author’s childhood. Set in Sicily in the 1860s, during the tumult of Italian unification, THE LEOPARD tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, fading aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of revolution and democracy. Its author, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who was the last in a line of Sicilian princes, wrote the novel in the 1950s, inspired by the decline of his own family. Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, remains skeptical and stoic as he finds himself beset by civil war, social change, and his family’s loss of wealth and status. While his beloved nephew, Tancredi, more practical and flexible than he, joins the nationalist rebels and marries the ambitious daughter of a newly rich upstart, Don Fabrizio takes refuge in his love of astronomy, gazing at the unchanging stars while the world as he has known it crumbles around him. The dramatic sweep and richness of Lampedusa’s observation, his seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and his sure grasp of human frailty imbue THE LEOPARD with its melancholy beauty and power. “No novel in Italian literature has aroused so much passion or caused so much argument… The book is more than the memorable invocation of a certain place in a certain epoch. It is a work of art that will survive, long after the last sad palaces of Palermo have gone, because it deals with the central problems of the human experience.” —from the Introduction by David Gilmour "The genius of its author and the thrill it gives the reader are probably for all time."—The New York Times Book Review "A masterwork . . . A superb novel in the great tradition and the grand manner."—Newsweek Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

Millicent understands the terms of her arranged marriage all too well. She gets to be a Countess by marrying an impoverished Earl. And in return, the Earl Fitzhugh receives the benefit of her vast wealth, saving his family from bankruptcy. Because of her youth, they have agreed to wait eight years before consummating the marriage--and then, only to beget an heir. After which, they will lead separate lives. It is a most sensible arrangement. Except for one little thing. Somehow Millie has fallen head over heels in love with her husband. Her husband, who has become her very best friend, but nothing more...Her husband, who plans to reunite with his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful and newly widowed Isabella, as soon as he has honored the pact with his wife... As the hour they truly become husband-and-wife draws near, both Millie and Fitzhugh must face the truth in their hearts. Has their pact bred only a great friendship--or has it, without either of them quite noticing, given rise to a great love?

New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh presents the first historical romance in the Westcott series, where the death of an earl reveals a most scandalous secret. Humphrey Westcott, Earl of Riverdale, has died, leaving behind a fortune and a scandalous secret that will forever alter the lives of everyone in his family—including the daughter no one knew he had... Anna Snow grew up in an orphanage in Bath knowing nothing of the family she came from. Now she discovers that the late Earl of Riverdale was her father and that she has inherited his fortune. She is also overjoyed to learn she has siblings. However, they want nothing to do with her or her attempts to share her new wealth. But the new earl’s guardian is interested in Anna… Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby, keeps others at a distance. Yet something prompts him to aid Anna in her transition from orphan to lady. As London society and her newfound relatives threaten to overwhelm Anna, Avery steps in to rescue her and finds himself vulnerable to feelings and desires he has hidden so well and for so long.

When the notorious Black Daniel is carried, badly injured, into Hester Wyatt's home, there is no question that he will be cared for and protected. Once a slave herself, Hester regularly gives shelter to runaways, yet the man of mysteries she now harbours brings greater danger than she's ever known, for Black Daniel is a member of a unique elite class of pre Civil War blacks, involved in subversive underground activity, and is also after her heart whether she wants him or not.

e-artnow presents to you the collection of the great love stories of the past, the best historical novels in one edition:_x000D_ Uarda: A Romance of Ancient Egypt (Georg Ebers)_x000D_ The New Abelard: Love in the Times of Cathedrals (Robert Williams Buchanan)_x000D_ Hildebrand: The Days of Queen Elizabeth (Anonymous) _x000D_ Love-at-Arms (Rafael Sabatini) _x000D_ The Making Of A Saint (W. Somerset Maugham) _x000D_ The Cloister and the Hearth (Charles Reade) _x000D_ The Princess of Cleves (Madame de La Fayette)_x000D_ The Forest Lovers (Maurice Hewlett) _x000D_ Malcolm (George MacDonald) _x000D_ Scarlet Letter: Love in the Colonial Period (Nathaniel Hawthorne) _x000D_ The Wild Irish Girl (Lady Sydney Morgan) _x000D_ Sophia (Stanley John Weyman) _x000D_ Paul and Virginia (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre) _x000D_ Memoirs of Emma Courtney (Mary Hays) _x000D_ Powder and Patch (Georgette Heyer)_x000D_ The Black Moth: A Romance of the XVIIIth Century (Georgette Heyer)_x000D_ The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (Eliza Haywood)_x000D_ Fantomina (Eliza Haywood)_x000D_ Olinda's Adventures (Catharine Trotter Cockburn)_x000D_ Belinda (Maria Edgeworth)_x000D_ Dangerous Liaisons (Pierre Choderlos de Laclos)_x000D_ Evelina (Fanny Burney)_x000D_ Pamela Trilogy_x000D_ Mary (Mary Wollstonecraft)_x000D_ Jane Austen:_x000D_ Pride & Prejudice_x000D_ Sense & Sensibility_x000D_ Mansfield Park_x000D_ Emma_x000D_ Persuasion_x000D_ Miss Marjoribanks & Phoebe, Junior (Mrs. Olifant)_x000D_ Vanity Fair (Thackeray)_x000D_ Mr. Rowl (D. K. Broster)_x000D_ The Battle of the Strong (Gilbert Parker)_x000D_ Kitty Alone (Sabine Baring-Gould) _x000D_ Sentimental Education (Gustave Flaubert) _x000D_ Lady Anna (Anthony Trollope)_x000D_ The Manoeuvring Mother (Lady Charlotte Bury)_x000D_ Ramona (Helen Hunt Jackson) _x000D_ Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)_x000D_ Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)_x000D_ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Brontë)_x000D_ The Lady of the Camellias (Alexandre Dumas)_x000D_ The Portrait of a Lady & The Wings of the Dove (Henry James)_x000D_ Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)_x000D_ The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)_x000D_ Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)_x000D_ Bel Ami (Guy de Maupassant) _x000D_ The Squatter and the Don (María Ruiz de Burton) _x000D_ Maria Chapdelaine (Louis Hémon)_x000D_ The Four Feathers (A. E. W. Mason) _x000D_ The Miranda Trilogy (Grace Livingston Hill)_x000D_ The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)