This volume studies the literary voices of the Italian diaspora in Britain, including 21 authors and 34 pieces of prose, verse, and drama. This book shows how authors both recount the history of the migrant community in the period 1880-1980 while creatively experimenting with hybrid forms of expression and blending words with visuals. Literary Voices of the Italian Diaspora in Britain discusses topical issues like migration and social integration, cultures and foods in transition, as well as plurilingualism. The book pays special attention to discussions of the horrors of the Second World War – especially on the tragedy of the Arandora Star (2nd July 1940) – to show this literary community’s political commitments. More importantly, it will begin to fill the void left by a critical tradition which has only appreciated the northern American and Australian branches of Italian writing.

This book illuminates a lesser-known aspect of the British history of travel in the Enlightenment: that of the Royal Society's special contribution to the "discovery" of the south of Italy in the age of the Grand Tour. By exploring primary source journal entries of philosophy and travel, the book provides evidence of how the Society helped raise the Fellows' curiosity about the Mediterranean and encouraged travel to the region by promoting cultural events there and establishing fruitful relations with major Italian academic institutions. They were especially devoted to revealing the natural and artistic riches of the Bourbon Kingdom from 1738 to 1780, during which the Roman city of Herculaneum was discovered and Vesuvius and Etna were actively eruptive. Through these examples, the book draws attention to the role that the Royal Society played in establishing cultural networks in Italy and beyond. Tracing a complex path starting in Restoration times, this new insight into discourse on learned travel contributes to a more challenging vision of Anglo-Italian relations in the Enlightenment.

Letters, diaries, memoirs, conduct books and early feminist pamphlets: Essays in Defence of the Female Sex: Custom, Education, and Authority in Seventeenth-Century England is a two-part, text-based volume on the pivotal figures and most distinctive, sometimes contradictory, aspects of the querelle des femmes in Stuart England. Background information is given through male and especially female-authored sources, while the close analysis of [Hanna Woolley]'s, Bathsua Makin's, Marry Astell's, Judith Drake's and Eugenia's most renowned tracts sheds light on women's difficult path towards emancipation. Addressed to both specialist and non-specialist readers, Essays in Defence of the Female Sex will also explain why-and to what extent-early feminist pamphleteering combined theory with practice, tradition with innovation, reality with utopia.