Synopses & Reviews
The third edition of this successful anthology collects an exceptional range of historical literatures that span the period from the British Civil War to the French Revolution. This volume presents an extensive selection of canonical texts, many reprinted from their earliest recoverable versions. Challenging the boundaries of eighteenth-century literary studies, this volume also includes many non-canonical works and many works by women writers of the period. Additionally, selections of literature from private and public life, from letters to political ballads, help to illuminate the history and cultural contexts in which the major literary works were created.
This new edition includes a number of significant updates. In addition to reintroducing and extending selections from the previous editions and incorporating new drama selections, new works by other major authors have been added, including Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, a portion of Lucy Hutchinson’s Order and Disorder, part of a pamphlet by Reeve and Muggleton, and Rochester’s A Ramble in St. James’s Park. Additionally, a chronology, an alternative list of contents by theme, and updated headnotes lend added accessibility.
Synopsis
The third edition of this successful anthology is a thoroughly updated collection of historical literatures that span the period from the British Civil War to the French Revolution.
- Fully updated, this anthology retains the historical span and range of major and minor literatures that made the first two editions so successful
- Represents many texts in their entirety and in their earliest recoverable versions
- Includes longer selections from some writers too scantly represented in the previous edition including Equiano Mary Barber and Anne Wharton
- Additional works by major authors, including Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, and a portion of Lucy Hutchinson’s Order in Disorder.
- Writers such as Abiezer Cope, John Armstrong, and Ephraim Chambers, have been restored from the first edition
- Includes new drama selections
- Added timelines, an alternative listing of contents by theme, and updated head notes make this volume especially accessible to beginning students
About the Author
“ … contains a wide range of expected work (or samples of it, like three books from Paradise Lost, Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, Blake’s “The Tyger” and Burns’s “To a Mouse”) but also a representative selection of literature from women writers (the problematic of regarding literature by gender is itself of interest) and enough of a general context to give a coherent impression over a period often compartmentalized differently (say, into centuries).
The editor provides a helpful introduction with historical and cultural background. There is a select bibliography at the end, along with an index of titles and first lines. The editorial stance has been to modernize where necessary but not arbitrarily. Text and notes are well displayed on the page. A thematic index (gender, aesthetics, race/slavery, pastoral etc) is a useful feature. You get a lot for your money … The paperback is sturdily-bound and should survive regular consultation. Looking across the period from the Civil War to Romanticism opens up perspectives unknown to silo-thinking by period, and it is a rich and varied period with more than a few things to delight and surprise.”
Stuart Hannabuss, Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen
Table of Contents
List of Authors.
Chronology.
Thematic Table of Contents.
Introduction.
Editorial Principles.
Preface to The Third Edition.
Acknowledgments.
Ballads and Newsbooks from the Civil War (1640-1649):.
The World Is Turned Upside Down (1646).
The King’s Last Farewell to The World, Or The Dead King’s Living Meditations, at The Approach of Death Denounced against him (1649).
The Royal Health to The Rising Sun (1649).
From A Perfect Diurnal of Some Passages in Parliament (1649).
Number 288 29 January–5 February 1649.
From Mercurius Pragmaticus (1649).
Number 43 30 January–6 February 1649.
Robert Filmer (1588?-1653):.
From Patriarcha, Or The Natural Power of Kings Asserted (1680).
V Kings Are Either Fathers of their People, Or Heirs of Such Fathers, Or The Usurpers of The Rights of Such Fathers.
VI Of The Escheating of Kingdoms.
VII Of The Agreement of Paternal and Regal Power.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):.
From Leviathan (1651).
Chapter XIII Of The Natural Condition of Mankind, As Concerning their Felicity, And Misery.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674):.
From Hesperides (1648).
The Argument of his Book.
To Daffodils.
The Night-Piece, to Julia.
The Hock-Cart, Or Harvest Home.
Upon Julia’s Cloths.
When He Would Have His Verses Read.
Delight in Disorder.
To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time.
His Return to London.
The Bad Season Makes The Poet Sad.
The Pillar of Fame.
John Reeve (1608-1658) and Lodowicke Muggleton (1609-1698).
From Joyful News from Heaven or the Last Intelligence from Our Glorified Jesus above the Stars.
John Milton (1608-1674):.
From The Doctrine And Discipline of Divorce; Restored to The Good of Both Sexes, from The Bondage of Canon Law, And Other Mistakes, to Christian Freedom, Guided by The Rule of Charity. Wherein Also Many Places of Scripture, Have Recovered their Long-Lost Meaning. Seasonable to Be Now Thought on in The Reformation Intended (1643).
Book I The Preface.
From Chapter I.
From Chapter VI.
From Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for The Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to The Parliament of England (1644).
From Poems (1673).
Sonnet 18 (1655) On The Late Massacre in Piemont.
Sonnet 19 (1652?) ‘When I Consider How my Light Is Spent’.
Sonnet 16 [To The Lord General Cromwell, 1652].
From Paradise Lost (1667).
The Verse.
Book I.
Book II.
Book IV.
Book IX.
Margaret Fell Fox (1614-1702):.
From Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved And Allowed by The Scriptures (1666).
Richard Lovelace (1618-1657):.
From Lucasta (1649).
Song to Lucasta, Going to The Wars.
Song to Amarantha, That she Would Dishevel her Hair.
To Althea, from Prison Song.
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667):.
From Poems (1656).
Ode of Wit.
To Mr Hobbes