"Wondrous Brutal Fictions" presents eight seminal works from the seventeenth-century Japanese sekkyo and ko-joruri puppet theaters, many translated into English for the first time. Both poignant and disturbing, they range from stories of cruelty and brutality to tales of love, charity, and outstanding filial devotion, representing the best of early Edo-period literary and performance traditions and acting as important precursors to the Bunraku and Kabuki styles of theater.

As works of Buddhist fiction, these texts relate the histories and miracles of particular buddhas, bodhisattvas, and local deities. Many of their protagonists are cultural icons, recognizable through their representation in later works of Japanese drama, fiction, and film. The collection includes such "sekkyo" "sermon-ballad" classics as "Sansho Dayu," " Karukaya," and "Oguri," as well as the " "old joruri"" plays "Goo-no-hime" and "Amida's Riven Breast." R. Keller Kimbrough provides a critical introduction to these vibrant performance genres, emphasizing the role of seventeenth-century publishing in their spread. He also details six major " sekkyo" chanters and their playbooks, filling a crucial scholarly gap in early Edo-period theater. More than fifty reproductions of mostly seventeenth-century woodblock illustrations offer rich, visual foundations for the critical introduction and translated tales. Ideal for students and scholars of medieval and early modern Japanese literature, theater, and Buddhism, this collection provides an unprecedented encounter with popular Buddhist drama and its far-reaching impact on literature and culture.

Book XIV of Martial's epigrams, the Apophoreta, derives its name from the presents hosts gave 'to be carried away' by their guests at the Roman Saturnalia. The book comprises poetic couplets designed to accompany such presents and arranged so as to describe, alternately, the gifts of rich and poor. It is a unique source of information about one of the principal Roman festivals and about many of the everyday objects of first-century Roman life; yet until now it has attracted scant attention. This edition, while dealing comprehensively with matters of literary, linguistic and textual note, concerns itself also with the social context of the Apophoreta and the gifts it describes. It is a rich source of information not only for specialists in Latin epigram and the literature of the Flavian period, but also for historians and archaeologists, and indeed anyone with an interest in the life and customs of Imperial Rome.

Ever since the author Paul Kieve was given a magic set at the age of ten, he has been buying magic books, props and posters and honing his skills as a magician. He keeps all his magical paraphenalia in his house in Hackney, right around the corner from the magnificent Hackney Empire, a venue played at by all the great illusionists of the golden era of magic, some hundred years ago. One day, as Paul is on the phone to his friend, sitting in his 'Poster Room', chatting to a friend about how well his magic show went from the night before, he gets a strange sensation ...Suddenly, the huge figure of Alexander steps out of the poster and starts telling Paul off for getting too big-headed! Alexander and the other brilliant magicians in the posters are going to show Paul what magic is really about!

Wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, connects a mythic past to the present through public ritual performance and is one of most important performance traditions in Bali. The dalang, or puppeteer, is revered in Balinese society as a teacher and spiritual leader. Recently, women have begun to study and perform in this traditionally male role, an innovation that has triggered resistance and controversy. In Women in the Shadows, Jennifer Goodlander draws on her own experience training as a dalang as well as interviews with early women dealing and leading artists to upend the usual assessments of such gender role shifts. She argues that rather than assuming that women performers are necessarily mounting a challenge to tradition, "tradition" in Bali must be understood as a system of power that is inextricably linked to gender hierarchy. She examines the very idea of "tradition" and how it forms both an ideological and social foundation in Balinese culture, and ultimately, Goodlander offers a richer, more complicated understanding of both tradition and gender in Balinese society. Following in the footsteps of other eminent reflexive ethnographers, Women in the Shadows will be of value to anyone interested in performance studies, Southeast Asian culture, or ethnographic methods.