This bilingual (English-French) anthology of early modern fictitious catalogues presents a multitude of texts, from the genre’s beginnings (Rabelais’s satirical catalogue of the Library of St.-Victor (1532)) to its French and Dutch specimens from around 1700.

Between the Levite at the gate and the judicial systems of our day is a long journey in courthouse government, but its basic structure remains the same - law, judge and process. Of the three, process is the most unstable - procedure and facts. Of the two, facts are the most intractable. While most of the law in books may seem to center about abstract theories, doctrines, princi ples, and rules, the truth is that most of it is designed in some way to escape the painful examination of the facts which bring parties in a particular case to court. Frequently the emphasis is on the rule of law as it is with respect to the negotiable instru ment which forbids inquiry behind its face; sometimes the empha sis is on men as in the case of the wide discretion given a judge or administrator; sometimes on the process, as in pleading to a refined issue, summary judgment, pre-trial conference, or jury trial designed to impose the dirty work of fact finding on laymen. The minds of the men of law never cease to labor at im proving process in the hope that some less painful, more trustworthy and if possible automatic method can be found to lay open or force litigants to disclose what lies inside their quarrel, so that law can be administered with dispatch and de cisiveness in the hope that truth and justice will be served.

This 2003 book is a full-scale history of early modern English literature, offering perspectives on English literature produced in Britain between the Reformation and the Restoration. While providing the general coverage and specific information expected of a major history, its twenty-six chapters address recent methodological and interpretive developments in English literary studies. The book has five sections: 'Modes and Means of Literary Production, Circulation, and Reception', 'The Tudor Era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I', 'The Era of Elizabeth and James VI', 'The Earlier Stuart Era', and 'The Civil War and Commonwealth Era'. While England is the principal focus, literary production in Scotland, Ireland and Wales is treated, as are other subjects less frequently examined in previous histories, including women's writings and the literature of the English Reformation and Revolution. This history is an essential resource for specialists and students.