Major Rupert Stonely came home after a dubious career selling surplus army equipment. Unfortunately, the army didn’t know that. He had also expected to inherit his late mother’s estate; she, it seemed, had other ideas. Rupert was about to be usurped by a glorified-waiter and he, quite literally, didn’t have the balls to do anything about it. Timothy Montague however, did - he just didn’t know how to use them. The Stonely Estate is set in the quiet English countryside, a world away from the problems of post-war Britain. Self-sufficient and off the map, it’s traditions and tranquillity was about to be shattered by the reading of the Stonely will. Rupert Stonely, heir-apparent, found himself demoted (for the second time in his life) to little more than a live-in caretaker. His mother, the Duchess, stout in both heritage and proportions, had taken a lover who had worked his charms into her bed and heart. All Major Stonely had to do, was produce a child and reclaim what was rightfully his. Sadly, his gun only fired blanks. A busty barmaid, a solicitor with an awkward problem, a draconian housekeeper and a trainee customs investigator and amateur bird watcher, all play their part in the unfolding story of An English Custom.

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

Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature argues that, ironically, custom was a supremely generative literary force for a range of Renaissance writers. Custom took on so much power because of its virtual synonymity with English common law, the increasingly dominant legal system that was also foundational to England's constitutionalist politics. The strange temporality assigned to legal custom, that is, its purported existence since 'time immemorial', furnished it with a unique and paradoxical capacity—to make new and foreign forms familiar. This volume shows that during a time when novelty was suspect, even insurrectionary, appeals to the widespread understanding of custom as a legal concept justified a startling array of fictive experiments. This is the first book to reveal fully the relationship between Renaissance literature and legal custom. It shows how writers were able to reimagine moments of historical and cultural rupture as continuity by appealing to the powerful belief that English legal custom persisted in the face of conquests by foreign powers. Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature thus challenges scholarly narratives in which Renaissance art breaks with a past it looks back upon longingly and instead argues that the period viewed its literature as imbued with the aura of the past. In this way, through experiments in rhetoric and form, literature unfolds the processes whereby custom gains its formidable and flexible political power. Custom, a key concept of legal and constitutionalist thought, shaped sixteenth-century literature, while this literature, in turn, transformed custom into an evocative mythopoetic.

Winner of the 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry Winner of the 2023 Northern California Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the 2023 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Finalist for the 2022 L.A. Times Book Prize for Poetry Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award In Customs, Solmaz Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal, a continual series of checkpoints, officers, searches, and questionings that become a relentless experience of America. With resignation and austerity, these poems trace a pointed indoctrination to the customs of the nation-state and the English language, and the realities they impose upon the imagination, the paces they put us through. While Sharif critiques the culture of performed social skills and poetry itself—its foreclosures, affects, successes—she begins to write her way out to the other side of acceptability and toward freedom. Customs is a brilliant, excoriating new collection by a poet whose unfolding works are among the groundbreaking literature of our time.

A comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the interrelationship between law and literature in Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Tudor England.

F. J. Snell's "The Customs of Old England" takes the reader on a fascinating journey of the intricate web of ancient traditions and customs in England. Snell deeply examines into England's cultural legacy, highlighting the traditions, rituals, and practices that have defined the country's identity. Snell covers a broad variety of exciting themes, from ancient festivals and rural traditions to societal conventions and folklore, with rigorous study and a great eye for detail. Each chapter reveals a different facet of England's history, illuminating the complex web of traditions that were an essential component of daily life. Snell transports readers to a bygone period and gives them the chance to experience the sights, sounds, and taste of ancient England through his descriptions and captivating narrative, which bring these practices to life. "The Customs of Old England" provides a fascinating and absorbing reading experience, whether of whether you're a history buff, a lover of cultural heritage, or just interested in the customs that have created a country.

This vintage book by F. J. Drake-Carnell explores the historical English ceremonies and traditions. From the Queen's opening of parliament to small town festivals and beyond, this volume contains everything one might to know about English customs, and it is not to be missed by the discerning Anglophile. Contents include: “The Houses of Parliament (1)”, “The Houses of Parliament (2)”, “Royal Ceremonies”, “The City of London”, “The City Livery Companies”, “Ceremony and the Law”, “Ecclesiastical Ceremonies, Doles, and Charities”, “Customs in the Country (1)”, “Customs in the Country (2)”, “Customs in the Country (3)”, Curious Tenures (1)”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction.

Основное отличие книги в том, что быт, традиции и обычаи рядовых англичан показываются без какого-либо преломления, глазами самих англичан. Она знакомит не только е календарными и семейными праздниками, популярными способами проведения досуга, но и е различными торжествами, фестивалями, происходящими в разных частях Англии в течение года.Книга может быть использована в качестве пособия по страноведению для изучающих английский язык и культуру Великобритании.

A study of the early Industrial Revolution in the English woollen cloth making industry.

On 5 July 1884, the yacht Mignonette set sail from Southampton bound for Sydney. Halfway through their projected one hundred and twenty day voyage, Captain Tom Dudley and his crew of three men were beset by a monstrous storm off the coast of Africa. After four days of battling towering waves and hurricane gales, their yacht was finally crushed by a ferocious forty foot wave. The survivors were cast adrift a thousand miles from the nearest landfall in an open thirteen foot dinghy without provisions, water or shelter from the scorching sun. When, after twenty four days, they were finally rescued by a passing yacht, the Moctezuma, only three men were left and they were in an appalling condition. The ordeal that they endured and the trial which followed their eventual return to England held the whole nation - from the lowliest ship's deckhand to Queen Victoria herself - spellbound during the following winter. This is the true story of the voyage and the subsequent court case which outlawed for ever a practice followed since men first put to the ocean in boats: the custom of the sea.