In this fascinating read, William Kuskin argues that the development of print production is part of a larger social network involving the political, economic, and literary systems that produce the intangible constellations of identity and authority.

This collection, the first such work on Caxton and his contemporaries, consists of ten original essays that explore early English culture, from Caxton's introduction of the press, through questions of audience, translation, politics, and genre, to the modern fascination with Caxton's books.

Ranging from the extraordinary burst of English literary writing under the reign of Richard II to the literature of the Reformation, this title challenges traditional assumptions and argues that the stylistic diversity enjoyed by late medieval writers was curtailed by the authoritarian practice of the 16th-century cultural revolution.

This work takes a fresh approach to the first 60 years of printing in England by placing Caxton, his contemporaries and the later generations in the broad context of the history of book production between the middle of the 15th century and the Reformation.

The typographic imaginary is an aesthetic linking authors from William Caxton to Alexander Pope, this study centrally contends. Early modern English literature engages imaginatively with printing and this book both characterizes that engagement and proposes the typographic imaginary as a framework for its analysis. Certain texts, Rachel Stenner states, describe the people, places, concerns, and processes of printing in ways that, over time, generate their own figurative authority. The typographic imaginary is posited as a literary phenomenon shared by different writers, a wider cultural understanding of printing, and a critical concept for unpicking the particular imaginative otherness that printing introduced to literature. Authors use the typographic imaginary to interrogate their place in an evolving media environment, to assess the value of the printed text, and to analyse the roles of other text-producing agents. This book treats a broad array of authors and forms: printers’ manuals; William Caxton’s paratexts; the pamphlet dialogues of Robert Copland and Ned Ward; poetic miscellanies; the prose fictions of William Baldwin, George Gascoigne, and Thomas Nashe; the poetry and prose of Edmund Spenser; writings by John Taylor and Alexander Pope. At its broadest, this study contributes to an understanding of how technology changes cultures. Located at the crossroads between literary, material, and book historical research, the particular intervention that this work makes is threefold. In describing the typographic imaginary, it proposes a new framework for analysis of print culture. It aims to focus critical engagement on symbolic representations of material forms. Finally, it describes a lineage of late medieval and early modern authors, stretching from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, that are linked by their engagement of a particular aesthetic.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.

Featuring entries composed by leading international scholars, The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature presents comprehensive coverage of all aspects of English literature produced from the early 16th to the mid 17th centuries. Comprises over 400 entries ranging from 1000 to 5000 words written by leading international scholars Arranged in A-Z format across three fully indexed and cross-referenced volumes Provides coverage of canonical authors and their works, as well as a variety of previously under-considered areas, including women writers, broadside ballads, commonplace books, and other popular literary forms Biographical material on authors is presented in the context of cutting-edge critical discussion of literary works. Represents the most comprehensive resource available for those working in English Renaissance literary studies Also available online as part of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature, providing 24/7 access and powerful searching, browsing and cross-referencing capabilities

Annual collection on diverse aspects of the fifteenth century, emphasizing literary topics with essays on French, German, English, Gaelic, and Middle Scots. The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that the period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. Fifteenth-Century Studiesoffers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Volume 37 includes articles on René d'Anjou and authorial doubling in the Livre du Coeur d'Amour épris; tradition and innovation in popular German song poetry from Oswald von Wolkenstein to Georg Forster; the role of sacred images in Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine; milieu, John Strecche, and the Gawain-poet; Gaelic, Middle Scots, and the question of ethnicity in three Scottish flytings; William Caxton's translations of Aesop; the visualization of information in Conrad Buitzruss's compendium; and Gilles de Rais and his modern apologists. Book reviews conclude the volume. Contributors: Albrecht Classen, Nicholas Ealy, Richard Garrett, Rosanne Gasse, Janice McCoy, Jacqueline Murdock, Ben Parsons, Carolyn King Stephens, Elizabeth Wade-Sirabian. BARBARA I. GUSICK is Professor Emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama; MATTHEW Z. HEINTZELMAN is curator of the Austria/Germany Study Center and Rare Book Cataloger at Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.