Product Description

This second edition of this successful anthology continues to challenge the boundaries of eighteenth-century literary study whilst thorough revisions make it even more useful to teachers and students. Changes for the second edition include: Dryden's major political poem, "Absalom and Achitophel" is now included, as is Aphra Behn's "The Golden Age". Restoration drama is newly represented in Congreve's "The Way of the World". Four key books (Books 1-2 and 9-10) of Milton's "Paradise Lost" are included instead of the full 12-book version. At the same time, the features that made the anthology appealing in its first edition have been retained.The exceptional historical range of the texts, which span the period from the British Civil War to the French Revolution, and the inclusion of women writers have made this the anthology of choice for many courses. Alongside the extensive representation of canonical texts, many reprinted in their entirety from earliest recoverable versions, DeMaria offers a selection of the literature of private and public life - court reports, letters, political ballads, and broadsides - illuminating the historical and cultural contexts in which the literary works were created.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98817 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 976 pages

About the Author
Robert DeMaria Jr. is Henry Noble MacCracken Professor of English at Vassar College. He is the editor of British Literature 1640-1789: A Critical Reader (Blackwell Publishers, 1999) which accompanies this anthology and the author of The Life of Samuel Johnson (Blackwell Publishers, 1993) in the Critical Biography series, and of several other books, including Johnson's Dictionary and the Language of Learning (1986).

Customer Reviews

Informative
I only purchased this book initially because it was a core text for my degree course in English Literature, but it has proved useful for gleaning other important facts outside my course. It may seem a little expensive but its not when you realize the sheer size and volume of information contained within.