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The ArtsJuly 2025The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson
Keeping the best place by the fire
by Andrea Wright
The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson: The best place by the fire is the first book to specifically consider Henson, best known for the immensely popular The Muppet Show, as an important creator of screen fairy tales. In a chronological overview of Henson's career from the late 1950s to his death in 1990, it explores key themes, artistic practices and innovations that make his contribution to the genre unique. Drawing upon a range of fairy tale scholarship, it also situates Henson's work within the wider context of the genre, specifically its conventions, themes and inherent intertextuality.
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The ArtsJune 2025Death in modern theatre
Stages of mortality
by Adrian Curtin
Death in modern theatre offers a unique account of modern Western theatre, focusing on the ways in which dramatists and theatre-makers have explored historically informed ideas about death and dying in their work. It investigates the opportunities theatre affords to reflect on the end of life in a compelling and socially meaningful fashion. In a series of interrelated, mostly chronological, micronarratives beginning in the late nineteenth century and ending in the early twenty-first century, this book considers how and why death and dying are represented at certain historical moments using dramaturgy and aesthetics that challenge audiences' conceptions, sensibilities, and sense-making faculties. It includes a mix of well-known and lesser-known plays from an international range of dramatists and theatre-makers, and offers original interpretations through close reading and performance analysis.
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Literature & Literary StudiesAugust 2025Translating Petrarch in early modern Britain
Canzoniere and Triumphi, c. 1530–1650
by Marie-Alice Belle, Riccardo Raimondo, Francesco Venturi
Translating Petrarch in early modern Britain gathers twelve essays by international scholars focusing on the translation of Petrarch's vernacular verse (Canzoniere and Triumphi) into English, from the Tudor age to the mid-seventeenth century (and beyond). Approaching translation as an interpretive process, but also a mode of literary emulation and cultural engagement with Petrarch's prestigious precedent, the collection explores the complex and interconnected trajectories of both poetic works in English and Scottish literary milieux. While situating each translation in its distinct historical, material, and literary context, the essays trace the reception of Petrarch's works in early modern Britain through the combined processes of linguistic and metric innovation, literary imitation, musical adaptation and cultural and material 'domestication'. The collection sheds light on the origins and development of early modern English Petrarchism as part of wider transnational - and indeed, translational-European literary culture.
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Literature & Literary StudiesOctober 2025Early modern drama and the theatre of war
Militarism, conflict and disruption in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries
by Bronwen Price, Hilary Hinds
This volume explores the disruptive effects of militarism, war and social unrest in early modern drama. Engaging with Simon Barker's seminal work on dramatic representations of war and militarism, contributors highlight what often lies hidden beneath the surface of martial narratives, treating them as formative interventions in contemporary discourses, whether in justifying war, excluding dissident voices or shaping cultural identities. Discussions include new examinations of militarism, the figure of the soldier and early modern theories of war in Shakespearean tragedy, history and comedy, alongside antimasque and dramatic satire by lesser-known playwrights. The essays investigate how ideas of war underpin emerging concepts of gender, leadership, marriage and the family, as well as the continuing mobilisation of Shakespearean drama in the context of modern armed conflict. Together, they offer rich new contributions to the current lively critical debates on this topic.
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Literature & Literary StudiesJune 2022The early modern English sonnet
Ever in motion
by Laetitia Sansonetti, Rémi Vuillemin, Enrica Zanin
This volume questions and qualifies commonly accepted assumptions about the early modern English sonnet: that it was a strictly codified form, most often organised in sequences, which only emerged at the very end of the sixteenth century and declined as fast as it had bloomed, and that minor poets merely participated in the sonnet fashion by replicating established conventions. Drawing from book history and relying on close reading and textual criticism, this collection offers a more nuanced account of the history of the sonnet. It discusses how sonnets were written, published and received in England as compared to mainland Europe, and explores the works of major (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser) and minor (Barnes, Harvey) poets alike. Reflecting on current editorial practices, it also provides the first modern edition of an early seventeenth-century Elizabethan miscellany including sonnets presumably by Sidney and Spenser.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2020Early modern war narratives and the Revolt in the Low Countries
by Raymond Fagel, Leonor Álvarez Francés, William G. Naphy, Beatriz Santiago Belmonte
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The ArtsFebruary 2026Visual arts and medicine in early modern Europe and beyond
A collection of essays and sources
by Robert Brennan, Fabian Jonietz, Romana Sammern
This book opens up new perspectives on the relationship between art, medicine, and science in late-medieval and early modern Europe. Looking beyond the traditional nexus of art, anatomy, and optics, the volume sheds light on a broader array of connections between artists and physicians: collaborations between painters and doctors on colour charts, handwork skills common to sculptors and surgeons, the transmission of art theory through medical texts long before the emergence of art writing itself as an independent genre, and the kinship of medical diagnosis with early modes of connoisseurship. Reconfiguring the histories of art, medicine, and science, the book also traverses conventional boundaries between physical and mental health, religious and medical modes of healing, menial and exalted forms of knowledge and labour, as well as vernacular and scientific understandings of human difference, including gender, race, and neurodiversity.
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Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2021Religion and life cycles in early modern England
by Caroline Bowden, Emily Vine, Tessa Whitehouse
Religion and life cycles in early modern England assembles scholars working in the fields of history, English literature and art history to further our understanding of the intersection between religion and the life course in the period c. 1550-1800. Featuring chapters on Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities, it encourages cross-confessional comparison between life stages and rites of passage that were of religious significance to all faiths in early modern England. The book considers biological processes such as birth and death, aspects of the social life cycle including schooling, coming of age and marriage and understandings of religious transition points such as spiritual awakenings and conversion. Through this inclusive and interdisciplinary approach, it seeks to show that the life cycle was not something fixed or predetermined and that early modern individuals experienced multiple, overlapping life cycles.
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Literature & Literary StudiesApril 2021Positive emotions in early modern literature and culture
by Cora Fox, Bradley J. Irish, Cassie M. Miura
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Literature & Literary StudiesNovember 2019Transnational connections in early modern theatre
by Pavel Drábek, M. A. Katritzky
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The ArtsNovember 2025Queen Henrietta's Men and the Cockpit Repertory
Drama on the Drury Lane Stage, 1626–36
by Eleanor Collins
This book offers the first extended study of Queen Henrietta's Men, one of Caroline London's most important professional playing companies. The drama that the company performed at the Cockpit between 1626 and 1636 includes many underexplored and neglected plays from the period alongside more celebrated works by dramatists including James Shirley and John Ford, and a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean revivals. Queen Henrietta's Men and the Cockpit Repertory explores the material and cultural conditions under which the company operated, and offers an account of the dynamics that held between new drama written for the company and the revivals staged alongside that fare. In doing so, this account illuminates the ways in which an appreciation of the work of Queen Henrietta's Men can offer new perspectives on theatre history and the categories of company and repertory that have shaped it.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2009Consumerism and the Co-operative movement in modern British history
Taking stock
by Lawrence Black, Nicole Robertson
Despite the abundance and quality of recent historical writing on consumerism, it cannot be said that the modern Co-operative movement (Co-op) has been well served. It has also been by-passed in studies that locate Britons' identity in their consumption. The reasons for this can be found in the widely perceived decline of the Co-op since the 1950s, but also in various historiographical agendas that have resulted in its relative invisibility in modern British history. This book, by demonstrating the variety of broader issues that can be addressed through the Co-op and the vibrancy of new historical research into consumption, seeks to remedy this. Taking stock, both of the Co-op in a broader context and of new approaches to the history of consumption, combines the work of leading authorities on the Co-op with recent scholarly research. It explores the Co-op's distinctive interface between everyday issues and grander idealistic concerns. The chapters intersect to examine a broad range of themes, notably: the politics of consumerism including consumer protection, ethical and fair trading and alternatives to corporate commerce; design and advertising; the Co-op's relations with other components of the labour movement; and its ideology, image and memory. The collection looks at the Co-operative movement locally (through specific case studies), nationally and also in comparison to the European movement. This collection will appeal to academics, researchers, teachers and students of the economic, cultural and political history of twentieth-century Britain. It will also be of interest to academics and students of business studies, and co-operative members themselves. ;
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2020Enacting the Bible in medieval and early modern drama
by Chanita Goodblatt, Eva von Contzen, David Matthews
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Humanities & Social SciencesAugust 2002Sodomy in early modern Europe
by Joseph Bergin, Tom Betteridge, Penny Roberts, Bill Naphy
This fascinating collection of essays reflects closely the main areas of debate within gay historiography. For the last twenty years scholars have argued over the nature of early modern sodomy, responding in a number of different and contradictory ways. Questions addressed in the book include: was early modern sodomy the same as modern homosexuality? Were there homosexuals in early modern Europe? Did men who had sex with each other in this period regard their behaviour as determining their identity? What was the relationship between the grave sin of sodomy and the homoerotic images that fill Renaissance culture?. The volume includes essays on sodomy in English Protestant history writing, in Calvin's Geneva, in early modern Venice and the trial of sodomy in Germany. ;
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Literature & Literary StudiesApril 2020The early modern English sonnet
by Laetitia Sansonetti, Rémi Vuillemin, Enrica Zanin, Tamsin Badcoe
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Humanities & Social SciencesDecember 2025Queer as folklore
The hidden queer history of myths and monsters
by Sacha Coward
A celebration of queer history like you've never seen it before. Queer as folklore travels across centuries and continents to reveal the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy. Featuring images from archives, galleries and museums around the world, each chapter investigates the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters, both old and new. Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward takes you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul's Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies and the graves of the 'queerly departed' along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows and created safe spaces in underworlds. But these forgotten narratives tell stories of resilience that deserve to be heard. Join any Pride march and you will see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads, drag queens in mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. These are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots. To truly understand who queer people are today, we must confront the twisted tales of the past.
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Literature & Literary StudiesFebruary 2015Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550–1700
1550–1700
by Edited by Victoria Brownlee and Laura Gallagher
At once pervasive and marginal, appealing and repellent, exemplary and atypical, the women of the Bible provoke an assortment of readings across early modern literature. Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550-1700 draws attention to the complex ways in which biblical women's narratives could be reimagined for a variety of rhetorical and religious purposes. Considering a confessionally diverse range of writers, working across a variety of genres, this volume reveals how women from the Old and New Testaments exhibit an ideological power that frequently exceeds, both in scope and substance, their associated scriptural records. The essays explore how the Bible's women are fluidly negotiated and diversely redeployed to offer (conflicting) comment on issues including female authority, speech and sexuality, and in discussions of doctrine, confessional politics, exploration and grief. As it explores the rich ideological currency of the Bible's women in early modern culture, this volume demonstrates that the Bible's women are persistently difficult to evade. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2026
Women in exile in early modern Europe and the Americas
by Linda Levy Peck, Adrianna E. Bakos
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The ArtsJune 2017Terry Gilliam
by Peter Marks
Terry Gilliam presents a sustained examination of one of cinema's most challenging and lauded auteurs, proposing fresh ways of seeing Gilliam that go beyond reductive readings of him as a gifted but manic fantasist. Analysing Gilliam's work over nearly four decades, from the brilliant anarchy of his Monty Python animations through the nightmarish masterpiece Brazil to the provocative Gothic horror of Tideland, it critically examines the variety and richness of Gilliam's sometimes troubled but always provocative output. The book situates Gilliam within the competing cultural contexts of the British, European and American film industries, examining his regular struggles against aesthetic and commercial pressures. He emerges as a passionate, immensely creative director, whose work encompasses a dizzying array of material: anarchic satire, childhood and adult fantasy, dystopia, romantic comedy, surrealism, road movie, fairy tale and the Gothic. The book charts how Gilliam interweaves these genres and forms to create magical interfaces between reality and the illuminating, frightening but liberating worlds of the imagination. Scrutinising the neglected importance of literature and adaptation in Gilliam's career, this study also observes him through the lenses of auteurism, genre, performance, design and national culture, explaining how someone born in Minnesota and raised in California came to be one of British television and film's most compelling figures.
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Children's & YAThe Strawberry Fairy. The Loveliest Stories to Read Aloud
by Stefanie Dahle
The Strawberry Fairy works her magic again! For this top-quality gift edition, decorated with glitter and foil embossing, the author and illustrator Stefanie Dahle has chosen her own favourite stories from the three books. There is always something going on in the strawberry garden: the little fairy cures the sore throats of the frog choir, helps Don Carlo to win the love of his sweetheart, and enjoys some jolly parties in the garden. Later everyone cuddles up by the fire and makes plans for the spring while drinking a delicious cup of strawberry tea. A book to treasure, and not just for Strawberry Fairy fans.
