Stage Mothers explores the connections between motherhood and the theater both on and off stage throughout the long eighteenth century. Although the realities of eighteenth-century motherhood and representations of maternity have recently been investigated in relation to the novel, social history, and political economy, the idea of motherhood and its connection to the theatre as a professional, material, literary, and cultural site has received little critical attention. The essays in this volume, spanning the period from the Restoration to Regency, address these forgotten maternal narratives, focusing on: the representation of motherhood as the defining female role; the interplay between an actress's celebrity persona and her chosen roles; the performative balance between the cults of maternity and that of the "passionate" actress; and tensions between sex and maternity and/or maternity and public authority. In examining the overlaps and disconnections between representations and realities of maternity in the long eighteenth century, and by looking at written, received, visual, and performed records of motherhood, Stage Mothers makes an important contribution to debates central to eighteenth-century cultural history.

Sterne, Tristram, Yorick: Tercentenary Essays on Laurence Sterne derives from the Laurence Sterne Tercentenary Conference held at Royal Holloway, University of London, on July 8-11, 2013. It was attended by some eighty scholars from fourteen countries; the conference heard more than sixty papers. The organizers invited participants to submit revised versions of their contributions for this volume, and the thirteen selected exhibit, it is hoped, the defining features both of the conference and of Sterne studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is worth remarking that the selected authors represent seven countries; that Sterne may well be the most internationally accepted of all eighteenth-century English authors is certainly a claim worthy of a sentimental traveler. This collection recognizes three faces of Sterne, beginning with several biographical essays examining, respectively, his celebrity status, family life, politics, and philosophy. The second face is that of Tristram, studied from vantage points provided by ethics, linguistics, gender studies, and comparative literature. The final group of essays examines the face of Yorick as the protagonist of A Sentimental Journey, beginning with an ethnographic study of relationships, moving through questions of identity, and concluding with the possible future of literary studies-a return to aesthetics.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

This collection highlights the common ground and cross-fertilization between literature and science, fields that were once thought to be independent of one another. This volume reproduces primary texts which embody the polymathic nature of the literature of science, and provides editorial overviews and extensive references, to provide a resource for specialized academics and researchers with a broad cultural interest in the long 18th century.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

Feminist scholarship and criticism has retrieved the Bluestocking women from their marginal position in 18th-century literature. This work collects the principal writings of these women, together with a selection of their letters. Each volume is annotated and all texts are edited and reset.

‘Kissing, Joseph, is but a Prologue to a Play. Can I believe a young Fellow of your Age and Complexion will be content with Kissing?’

Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding’s first full-length novel, depicts the many colourful and often hilarious adventures of a comically chaste servant. After being sacked for spurning the lascivious Lady Booby, Joseph takes to the road, accompanied by his beloved Fanny Goodwill, a much-put-upon foundling girl, and Parson Adams, a man often duped and humiliated, but still a model of Christian charity. In the boisterous short tale Shamela, a brilliant parody of Richardson’s Pamela, the spirited and sexually honest heroine uses coyness and mock modesty to catch herself a rich husband. Together these works anticipate Fielding’s great comic epic Tom Jones, with their amiable good humour and pointed social satire.

Judith Hawley’s introduction compares the works of Fielding and Richardson, and discusses sex and class relations, and the literary and political world of the time. This volume also includes a chronology and suggestions for further reading.