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Among the most popular children’s books of the Victorian period, The Water-Babies continues to delight readers of all ages. It tells the story of a young boy named Tom, who escapes his harsh life as a chimney sweep by being transformed into a “water-baby.” His adventures underwater introduce him to strange animals, gentle fairies, and…

Glances Backward brings together in one volume a broad selection of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American writings about gay male love, including love stories, Westerns, ghostly tales, poetry, drama, essays, letters, and memoirs. Many of these works, such as The Cult of the Purple Rose, the story of a gay alliance at 1890s Harvard, are…

Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy established Harriet Martineau as both a successful and controversial author and a pioneer of nineteenth-century “social problem” writing. This widely read series of didactic stories popularized political economy, making it accessible to audiences by vividly dramatizing issues such as overpopulation and labour strikes. Illustrations of Political Economy marks…

John Milton’s epic story of cosmic rebellion and the beginning of human history has long been considered one of the greatest and most gripping narratives ever written in English. Yet its intensely poetic language, now-antiquated syntax and vocabulary, and dense allusions to mythical and Biblical figures make it inaccessible to many modern readers. This is,…

Developed for use in college and university courses, Science and Society provides a broad selection of science writing intended to help students think critically about science and related ethical issues, and to write effectively about science in a variety of styles. The anthology combines pieces aimed at a general audience—including essays by Stephen Jay Gould,…

Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Waverley enjoyed tremendous popularity upon its first publication. The novel is set during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which sought to restore Charles Edward Stuart to the British throne. It portrays the doomed rising from the perspective of the hero, Edward Waverley, who travels to Scotland and is drawn to…

Israel Zangwill, an Anglo-Jewish author and son of immigrants, wrote The Melting-Pot to demonstrate how immigrants could become good American citizens, hoping to forestall the kinds of restrictions—particularly against Russian Jews—that had been enacted in his home country. In 1908, when the play first appeared on an American stage, many Americans feared that these particular…

Concert of Voices combines poetry, fiction, drama, and essays in an anthology of world literature in English. This second edition preserves the first edition’s breadth and its balance of established and less widely known authors, while including a large selection of exciting new material. Biographical information and explanatory notes have been updated and expanded, and…

Jack of Newbury is an incisive yet remarkably entertaining work of narrative prose—and one that was extremely popular when it was published in the 1590s. The title character, an apprentice weaver, marries his former master’s wife, expands her cloth business into an enormous enterprise, refuses Henry VIII’s offer of a knighthood, and confronts Cardinal Wolsey;…

First published in 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as a story told to Alice Liddell and her two sisters on a boating trip in July 1862. The novel follows Alice down a rabbit-hole and into a world of strange and wonderful characters who constantly turn everything upside down with their mind-boggling logic, word play,…

This concise and affordable anthology is designed for use as a textbook in both undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of language. It aims to provide a core of essential primary sources and may be used either on its own, or in conjunction with a secondary source.

African American women have been “up and doing” for their communities for as long as they have been in the United States, and their ability to resist the institution of slavery was central to the survival of African Americans. This anthology gives readers access to African American feminist thought in its foundational period by drawing…

This book gives students an answer to the question, “What does my professor want from this essay?” Using a single poem by William Carlos Williams as the basis for the process of writing a paper, it walks students through the processes of reading, brainstorming, researching secondary sources, gathering evidence, and composing and editing the paper.…

Arguably no medieval English literary work has had as far and wide a reach as Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur; among the many adaptations are Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, and the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot. It might also be argued that the late twentieth- and…

An Imperative Duty tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to assume that she is white, but who is in fact the descendant of an African-American grandmother. The novel traces the struggles of Rhoda, her family, and her suitor to come…

In 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland noted that “there is a path of fatality which pursues the relations between the two countries and makes them eternally at cross purposes.” For better or worse, Ireland has frequently been defined by its relationship with its neighbor to…

One of the most profound philosophical problems is the nature of mind and its relationship to the body. A Brief Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind provides an introduction, written in clear language, to the various theories of the mind-body relationship, as well as a host of related philosophical discussions about mind and consciousness. The…

One of the first animal viewpoint novels published in North America, Margaret Marshall Saunders’s Beautiful Joe tells the story of an abused dog and his rescue by a humane family. The novel, based on the true story of a dog in the author’s home province of Ontario, fuelled humane sentiments worldwide. This annotated, illustrated edition…

For twenty-six years after his first mention of the character, J.M. Barrie worked on the story of Peter Pan as he appeared through different incarnations: the three-act play Peter Pan, or the Boy who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904), the illustrated novella Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), the Epilogue to the play “An After Thought”…

This second edition of Philosophy of Sport: Core Readings provides an overview of core topics in the field, ranging from fundamental questions about the nature of sport to ethical issues at the forefront of discussions of what sport should be. On the nature of sport, readers will gain a solid understanding of fundamental theories of…

Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl and her passage into adulthood, was an immediate commercial success at the time of its original publication in 1847. Its representation of the underside of domestic life and the hypocrisy behind religious enthusiasm drew both praise and bitter criticism, while Charlotte Brontë’s striking exposé of poor living…

This accessible, personal, and provocative study returns to the major subject in literary discussion before and during the relatively recent flourishing of literary theory, that of literary intention. Does the author’s personal intention or historical site determine a correct interpretation of a literary work? Probing the entire range of issues connected with this many-faceted and…

The Monk is the most sensational of Gothic novels. The main plot concerns Ambrosio, an abbot of irreproachable holiness, who is seduced by a woman (or perhaps a demon) disguised as a novice, and who goes on to sell his soul to the Devil. An extravagant blend of sex, death, politics, Satanism, and poetry, the…

Academic Writing Now: A Brief Guide for Busy Students is a rhetoric designed to cover the basics of a college writing course in a concise, student-friendly format. Each chapter concentrates on a crucial element of composing an academic essay and is capable of being read in a single sitting. The book is loaded with “timesaver…