For centuries, the transmission of power in feudal European society depended on a code of fidelity, of political allegiance, and truth to one's word. The word a

From 1642 to 1660, live theater was banned in England. The market for printed books, however—including plays—flourished. How did this period, when plays cou

"This is an exciting and wholly original book. It is devilishly intelligent, formidable in its deployment of history and theory."—John Richetti, author of Pop

In the first full-length study of the figure of the female libertine in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century literature, Laura Linker examines heroine

Although moral earnestness has long been considered characteristic of the Victorians, Kucich maintains that English fiction in the nineteenth century was as int