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A biography of the remarkable—and in her time scandalous—seventeenth-century writer Margaret Cavendish, who pioneered the science fiction novel.'My ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world.'—Margaret Cavendish Margaret Cavendish, then Lucas, was born in 1623 to an aristocratic family. In 1644, as England descended into civil war, she joined the court of the formidable Queen Henrietta Maria at Oxford. With the rest of the court she went into self-imposed exile in France. Her family's wealth and lands were forfeited by Parliament. It was in France that she met her partner, William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a marriage that made her the Duchess of Newcastle and would remain at the heart of both her life and career. Margaret was a passionate writer. She wrote extensively on gender, science, philosophy, and published under her own name at a time when women simply did not do so. Her greatest work was The Blazing World, published in 1666, a utopian proto-novel that is thought to be one of the earliest works of science fiction that brought together Margaret's talents in poetry, philosophy, and science. Yet hers is a legacy that has long divided opinion, and history has largely forgotten her, an undeserved fate for a brilliant, courageous proto-feminist. In Pure Wit, Francesca Peacock remedies this omission and shines a spotlight on the fascinating, pioneering, yet often complex and controversial life, of the multi-faceted Margaret Cavendish.

'Puts Cavendish back into the literary history books where she belongs'Kate Mosse'Scholarly, articulate, and never less than fascinating'Alice Loxton'Well-written, well-researched, interesting and peppy.'ObserverA biography of the remarkable, and in her time scandalous, seventeenth-century writer Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.'My ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world.'Margaret Cavendish, then Lucas, was born in 1623 to a wealthy family. In 1644, as England descended into civil war, she joined the court of the formidable Queen Henrietta Maria at Oxford, before following the court into exile in France. It was there that she met her much older lifelong partner, William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.Cavendish was a revolutionary writer. At a time when literature was dominated by men, she wrote passionately on gender, science and philosophy, defied convention by publishing under her own name, and advocated for women in work that predates the feminist movement. In 1666, she published The Blazing World, a brilliant, trail-blazing proto-novel thought to be one of the earliest works of science fiction. But her legacy divides opinion. And history has largely forgotten her.In Pure Wit, Francesca Peacock shines a spotlight on the fascinating, pioneering, yet often complex and controversial life of Margaret Cavendish.

A fascinating account of how Shakespeare's works were understood and valued by readers and writers from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, before Shakespeare's biography came to dominate readings of his plays and poetry. For almost two centuries after his death, Shakespeare had no biography. The makings of one were not available. No chronology had been devised by which to coordinate the events in his life with the writing of his works. Nor was there an archive of primary materials on which to base a life. And the only work by Shakespeare written in the first person, the Sonnets, had yet to be critically edited and incorporated into the canon. Without a biography, how could Shakespeare have been valued and understood? In Shakespeare without a Life, Margreta de Grazia looks at aspects of Shakespeare's reception between 1600 and 1800 that have been all but lost to the now still prevailing biographical impulse. It recovers the anecdote as a form of literary criticism, retrieves the ancient category of genre as the canon's organizing rubric, demonstrates how the quest for authentic documents invalidated other forms of literary record, and reveals how the desire to forge connections between Shakespeare's life and the Sonnets occluded his self-presentation as the'deceasèd I'of a posthumous poet.

In this book, Gavin Francis writes about the resonance for him as a medic in reading the work of early modern polymath Sir Thomas Browne. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English physician, wordsmith, and polymath who contributed hundreds of words to the English language (such as medical, electricity, migrant, and computer). After studying medicine in Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, he settled in Norwich, where he practised as a doctor and wrote some of the greatest books of the seventeenth century, still read for their accessibility and eloquence. In Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time, Dr Gavin Francis examines Browne's work through a variety of themes: ambiguity, curiosity, vitality, piety, humility, misogyny, mobility, and mortality. He argues that the work has lost little of its power and wisdom, and none of its beauty. Religio Medici ('Religion of the Doctor') examined the vexed question of faith in a God who, to a physician, seemed indifferent to suffering. Pseudodoxia Epidemica ('Vulgar Errors') gave free rein to an agile curiosity and sought to debunk notions then commonly believed, such as that dead kingfishers indicate the direction of the wind, or that a woman could get pregnant from sharing a bath with a man. Urne Buriall was Browne's meditation on mortality, occasioned by a find of funerary urns, while Museum Clausum ('Hidden Museum') sets out a series of thought experiments and counterfactuals, such as how history might have been different had Alexander the Great marched west instead of east. Gavin Francis draws on his own experiences as a twenty-first century writer and doctor to discover that although many centuries separate him from Browne, they share a fundamental curiosity about the world and about people.

Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) was in his time widely known as'Davenant the Poet'. The son of an Oxford vintner (or quite possibly the natural son of his godfather, William Shakespeare), he wrote poems for and about the Court of Charles I, and, despite losing his nose to mercury treatment for the clap, which other people thought funny, went on to replace Ben Jonson as Poet Laureate and collaborate with Inigo Jones in composing spectacular Court masques, as well as writing many successful plays -- a few fashionably blood-thirsty, most showing a real comic gift, humanity and sympathy with'ordinary life'. In the Civil War, he earned a knighthood as an especially successful gun-runner for the Royalists, before escaping to Paris, where he worked on an epic poem. Then sent off by Charles II to colonize Virginia but captured by the Parliamentarians, he escaped execution but was imprisoned for five years. With the Restoration, he practically re-invented English theatre, with the first English opera, women actors, movable scenery and the proscenium arch, as well as reviving interest in Shakespeare with inventive adaptations. Energetic, affable and resilient, he was an appealing and well-liked character. Celebrated and important in his day, Davenant is now surprisingly little known. This enterprising study introduces modern readers to his wit, poetry, and growing scepticism as to Court and aristocratic values, and his developing feminist sympathies. Here, select excerpts and summaries bring this entertaining writer to a new, wider audience.

Aphra Behn was a prolific and well established writer but facts about her remain scant and difficult to confirm. What can safely be said though is that Aphra Behn is now regarded as a key English playwright and a major figure in Restoration theatre.Aphra was born into the rising tensions to the English Civil War. Obviously a time of much division and difficulty as the King and Parliament, and their respective forces, came ever closer to conflict.There are claims she was a spy, that she travelled abroad, possibly as far as Surinam.By 1664 her marriage was over (though by death or separation is not known but presumably the former as it occurred in the year of their marriage) and she now used Mrs Behn as her professional name.Aphra now moved towards pursuing a more sustainable and substantial career and began work for the King's Company and the Duke's Company players as a scribe.Previously her only writing had been poetry but now she would become a playwright. Her first, “The Forc'd Marriage”, was staged in 1670, followed by “The Amorous Prince” (1671). After her third play, “The Dutch Lover”, Aphra had a three year lull in her writing career. Again it is speculated that she went travelling again, possibly once again as a spy.After this sojourn her writing moves towards comic works, which prove commercially more successful. Her most popular works included “The Rover” and “Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister” (1684–87).With her growing reputation Aphra became friends with many of the most notable writers of the day. This is The Age of Dryden and his literary dominance.From the mid 1680's Aphra's health began to decline. This was exacerbated by her continual state of debt and descent into poverty.Aphra Behn died on April 16th 1689, and is buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads:'Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality.'She was quoted as stating that she had led a'life dedicated to pleasure and poetry.'

Robert Greene was, by the best accounts available, born in Norwich in 1558 and baptised on July 11th.Greene is believed to have been a pupil at Norwich Grammar School and then attended Cambridge receiving his B.A. in 1580, and an M.A. in 1583. He then moved to London and began an extraordinary chapter in his life as a widely published author. His literary career began with the publication of the long romance, ‘Mamillia', (1580). Greene's romances were written in a highly wrought style which reached its peak in ‘Pandosto'(1588) and ‘Menaphon'(1589). Short poems and songs incorporated in some of the romances attest to his ability as a lyric poet. In 1588, he was granted an MA from Oxford University, almost certainly as a courtesy degree. Thereafter he sometimes placed the phrase Utruisq. Academiae in Artibus Magister','Master of Arts in both Universities'on the title page of his works.The lack of records hinders any complete biography of Greene but he did write an autobiography of sorts, but where the balance lies between facts and artistic licence is not clearly drawn. According to that autobiography ‘The Repentance of Robert Greene', Greene is alleged to have written ‘A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance'during the month prior to his death, including in it a letter to his wife asking her to forgive him and stating that he was sending their son back to her. His output was prolific. Between 1583 and 1592, he published more than twenty-five works in prose, becoming one of the first authors in England to support himself with his pen in an era when professional authorship was virtually unknown.In his ‘coney-catching'pamphlets, Greene fashioned himself into a well-known public figure, narrating colourful inside stories of rakes and rascals duping young gentlemen and solid citizens out of their hard-earned money. These stories, told from the perspective of a repentant former rascal, have been considered autobiographical, and to incorporate many facts of Greene's own life thinly veiled as fiction. However, the alternate account suggests that Greene invented almost everything, merely displaying his undoubted skills as a writer.In addition to his prose works, Greene also wrote several plays, none of them published in his lifetime, including ‘The Scottish History of James IV', ‘Alphonsus', and his greatest popular success, ‘Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay', as well as ‘Orlando Furioso', based on Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.His plays earned himself the title as one of the ‘University Wits', a group that included George Peele, Thomas Nashe, and Christopher Marlowe.Robert Greene died 3rd September 1592.

Looking at texts by non-aristocratic authors, in this studythe author investigates the relationship between nascent early modern notions of professional authorship and the emerging idea of vocation - the sense that one's identity is bound up in one's work. The author analyzes how the concept of labor as a calling, which was assisted by early modern experiments in democracy, print, and Protestant religion, had a lasting effect on the history of authorship as a profession. In so doing, she reveals the construction of an approach to early modern authorship that values diligence over the courtly values of leisure and play. This study expands the scope of scholarship to develop a cultural history that acknowledges the considerable impact of non-aristocratic poets on the idea of authorship as a vocation. The author shows that our modern, post-Romantic notions of the professional writer as materially impoverished-and yet committed to his or her art-has recognizable roots in early modern England's workaday lives.

This file includes a memoir of Bunyan by George Offor and 57 works by Bunyan. According to Wikipedia,'John Bunyan (1628? 1688), a Christian writer and preacher, was born at Harrowden... in the Parish of Elstow, England. He wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, arguably the most famous published Christian allegory.'

This historical biography reveals how the famous diarist of Restoration England used his professional position to act as a sexual predator. Samuel Pepys is popularly known as the founder of the modern navy, a member of the Royal Society and, most of all, as a unique and frank diarist. Less well known is that he was a serial sexual offender by modern standards; a voyeur, a groper, and a rapist. Set against the London society of Charles II's restoration, and extensively using Pepys'own words, this book concerns his numerous extramarital affairs. It demonstrates how he used his position of power and influence to advance the careers of his subordinates—in return for the sexual favors of their wives. With his own descriptions, translated from the strange mix of languages and the seventeenth-century shorthand he used to camouflage the content, the reader witnesses in graphic detail how Pepys set about achieving his lascivious objectives – on occasion resorting to physical force where persuasion or bribery failed. Whether she be wife, daughter, mother, or humble maidservant, no woman was safe from his rapacious sexual appetite.

'Fascinating scholarship. Todd conveys Behn's vivacious character and the mores of the time'New York Times'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn; for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds,'said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet of the erotic and bisexual, political propagandist, novelist and spy: the date of her death, 16 April 1689. For the rest secrecy and duplicity are almost the key to her life. She loved codes, making and breaking them; writing her life becomes a decoding of a passionate but playful woman.In this revised biography, Janet Todd draws on documents she has rediscovered in the Dutch archives, and on Behn's own writings, to tell a story of court, diplomatic and sexual intrigue, and of the rise from humble origins of the first woman to earn her living as a professional writer.Aphra Behn's first notable employment was as a royal spy in Holland; she had probably also spied in Surinam. It was not until she was in her thirties that she published the first of the nineteen plays and other works which established her fame (though not riches) among her'good, sweet, honey-candied readers'. Many of her works were openly erotic, indeed as frank as anything by her friends Wycherley and Rochester. Some also offered an inside view of court and political intrigues, and Todd reveals the historical scandals and legal cases behind some of Behn's most famous'fictions'.Janet Todd, novelist and internationally renowned scholar, was president of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, and a Professor at Rutgers, NJ. An expert on women's writing and feminism, she has written about many writers, including Jane Austen, the Shelley Circle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Aphra Behn.'Ground-breaking it reads quickly and lightly. Even Todd's throwaway lines are steeped in learning'Women's Review of Books'A major biography; of interest to everyone who cares about women as writers'Times Higher Education Supplement

While most critical writing on Jonson concentrates on the plays, poems or masques seen in isolation, this title, first published in 1981, ranges across the genres to explore Jonson's vision as a whole. The author points to the inner connections that make of the rich variety of Jonson's writing a single coherent body of work. We see Jonson exploring the relations between culture and society, the difficulties of ideal virtue in a far from ideal world, and above all the problems of art itself. Combining a wide-ranging discussion of Jonson's interests with a detailed examination of his major works, this book provides a balanced critical introduction to one of the most complex and fascinating figures in English Literature.

The extraordinary character of Ben Jonson has only recently been brought into the light. Critics traditionally exalted Shakespeare, at Jonson's expense. In this biography, first published in 1986, the author presents a full and accurate account of Jonson's life in modern times. Rosalind Miles follows Jonson from his obscure beginnings to his burial in Westminster Abbey, as the first Poet Laureate, in 1637. Her Jonson is vivid and vigorous, equally alive in his life and in his work. This title will be of interest to students of history, English literature and Renaissance drama.

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is one of the most important works of English literature. Translated into more than 200 languages, it once rivalled the Bible in popularity in the English-speaking world.In A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People, Christopher Hill reassesses the well-known author to recover Bunyan's significance as a preacher-a man whose nonconformist religion led him into conflict with the Quakers and resulted in long years of imprisonment. It was while confined that he wrote his most famous works. This classic biography by one of the leading historians of the seventeenth century offers an extraordinary insight into one of Britain's most influential writers.

Few families have contributed as much to English history and literature-indeed, to the arts generally-as the Sidney family. This two-volume Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on family members and their impact, as historical and literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 1: Lives, begins with an overview of the Sidneys and politics, providing some links to court events, entertainments, literature, and patronage. The volume gives biographies to prominent high-profile Sidney women and men, as well as sections assessing the influence of the family in the areas of the English court, international politics, patronage, religion, public entertainment, the visual arts, and music. The focus of the second volume is the literary contributions of Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Presented in two volumes, The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500-1700 assesses the current state of scholarship on members of the Sidney family and their impact, as historical and/or literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 2: Literature, begins with an exploration of the Sidneys'books and manuscripts and how they circulated, followed by an overview of the contributions of family members -Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke - in the genres of prose romance, drama, poetry, psalms and prose. These essays outline major controversies and areas for further research, as well as conducting literary analysis.

Aphra Behn was a prolific and well established writer but facts about her remain scant and difficult to confirm. What can safely be said though is that Aphra Behn is now regarded as a key English playwright and a major figure in Restoration theatre. Aphra was born into the rising tensions to the English Civil War. Obviously a time of much division and difficulty as the King and Parliament, and their respective forces, came ever closer to conflict. There are claims she was a spy, that she travelled abroad, possibly as far as Surinam. By 1664 her marriage was over (though by death or separation is not known but presumably the former as it occurred in the year of their marriage) and she now used Mrs Behn as her professional name. Aphra now moved towards pursuing a more sustainable and substantial career and began work for the King's Company and the Duke's Company players as a scribe. Previously her only writing had been poetry but now she would become a playwright. Her first, “The Forc'd Marriage”, was staged in 1670, followed by “The Amorous Prince” (1671). After her third play, “The Dutch Lover”, Aphra had a three year lull in her writing career. Again it is speculated that she went travelling again, possibly once again as a spy. After this sojourn her writing moves towards comic works, which prove commercially more successful. Her most popular works included “The Rover” and “Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister” (1684–87). With her growing reputation Aphra became friends with many of the most notable writers of the day. This is The Age of Dryden and his literary dominance. From the mid 1680's Aphra's health began to decline. This was exacerbated by her continual state of debt and descent into poverty. Aphra Behn died on April 16th 1689, and is buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads:'Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality.'She was quoted as stating that she had led a'life dedicated to pleasure and poetry.'

Originally published in 1934, Palmer's biography of famous playwright Ben Jonson delves into his life and works and what he achieved in both. As first poet laureate of England, Jonson's life presents a fascinating look into the state of literature and theatre in renaissance Britain which Palmer presents in great detail. This title will be of interest to students of literature.

The seventeenth century allegory ‘The Pilgrim's Progress'is widely regarded as one of the most significant religious works of English literature. The satire constructs a symbolic vision of the good man's pilgrimage through life and was at one time second only to the Bible in popularity. This comprehensive eBook presents John Bunyan's complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) • Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Bunyan's life and works • Concise introductions to the satires and other texts • ALL the satires and religious works, with individual contents tables • Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts • Excellent formatting of the texts • Contemporary illustrations for ‘The Pilgrim's Progress'• Includes the poetical works, with alphabetical contents table • Easily locate the poems you want to read • Special criticism section, with five essays evaluating Bunyan's contribution to literature • Features two biographies - discover Bunyan's intriguing life • Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Satires THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS: PART I THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MR. BADMAN THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS: PART II THE HOLY WAR The Tracts and Sermons LIST OF TRACTS, DOCTRINES AND OTHER PIECES The Autobiographical Works GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS A RELATON OF THE IMPRISONMENT OF MR. JOHN BUNYAN A CONTINUATION OF MR. BUNYAN'S LIFE The Poetry SCRIPTURAL POEMS; BEING SEVERAL PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE DIGESTED INTO ENGLISH VERSE ONE THING IS NEEDFUL A BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS OR, TEMPORAL THINGS SPRITUALIZED A CAUTION TO STIR UP TO WATCH AGAINST SIN A DISCOURSE OF THE BUILDING, NATURE, EXCELLENCY, AND GOVERNMENT OF THE HOUSE OF GOD LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Criticism JOHN BUNYAN by John Kelman BUNYAN by George Edward Woodberry JOHN BUNYAN: FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT by Osgood E. Fuller JOHN BUNYAN by Andrew Lang JOHN BUNYAN by Robert Lynd The Biography MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN by George Offor THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN by Edmund Venables Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

The barest facts of the life of Aphra Behn are astonishing in themselves. Born in 1640 of comparatively obscure parentage in Kent, she had, by her mid-twenties, travelled to South America, returned to England, been married and widowed. She was sent b

Sir Thomas Browne: A Life is the first full-scale biography of the extraordinary prose artist, physician, and polymath. With the help of recent archival discoveries, the biography recasts each phase of Browne's life (1605-82) and situates his incomparable writings within the diverse intellectual and social contexts in which he lived, including London, Winchester, Oxford, Montpellier, Padua, Leiden, Halifax, and Norwich. The book makes the case that, as his contemporaries fervently believed, Browne influenced the intellectual and religious direction of seventeenth-century England in singularly rich and dynamic ways. Special attention is paid in the biography to Browne's medical vocation but also to his place within the scientific revolution. New information is offered regarding his childhood in London, his European travels and medical studies, the setting in which he first wrote Religio Medici, his impact on readers during the English civil wars, and the contemporary view of his medical practice. Overall, the image of Browne that emerges is far bolder and more cosmopolitan, less complacent and provincial, than biographers have assumed ever since Samuel Johnson doubted Browne's claim that his life up to age thirty resembled a romantic fiction filled with miracles and fables. The biography has extensive material for anyone interested in the histories of religion, education, science and medicine, seventeenth-century England, and early modern philosophy and literature.

First inexpensive edition of great travel classic offers detailed, sharply observed portrait of 17th-century Persia. Vivid record of life at court of Shah: lavish banquets and entertainments, diplomatic negotiations, intrigues and cruelty, more. Also, soil and climate, flora and fauna, manners and customs, trade and manufacture, and many other aspects. 9 illustrations.

The One Thomas More carefully studies the central humanist and polemical texts written by More to illustrate a coherent development of thought.

A fascinating biography of John Bunyan, the Christian writer and preacher famous for his work ‘The Pilgrim's Progress', written by the historian and literary scholar Edmund Venables.

A new Roland Emmerich film - Anonymous - was released in October 2011. The seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604), says Emmerich, wrote the Shakespearian works. How could such a postulation come about and where does this doubt as to William Shaksper's authorship come from? (No offence is intended by calling the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon'Shaksper'; he certainly wouldn't have taken any, that's how he wrote it on his marriage license.) - After the academic world has been guessing and floundering for 150 years, the literary detective Kurt Kreiler surprises us with a book that addresses this subject after years of sound and thorough academic research. This is definitely the leading book on this subject. Chapters 1 and 2 explain why Will Shaksper from Stratford-upon-Avon was not an author. In chapter 3, ten works of the author William Shakespeare will be analysed with a view to determine what criteria the author must have had in order to write the works in question. Which foreign lands had the author visited? What historical references have been made? When were the pieces written? Chapter 4 examines the social perspectives of the'Author of the plays'. Chapter 5 examines what Shakespeare's literary contemporaries knew about him, with whom did they associate him, what qualities did they attribute to him? An analysis of the Harvey-Nashe-Quarrel show us that they both agree that the author'Master William'was the creator of the figure Falstaff and that this author was Eduard de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Chapter 6 deals with the first part of the biography of Eduard de Vere. Chapters 7 and 8 show that the the profile of the Author that was developed in chapters 3-5 correlates logically and universally with the biography of the Earl of Oxford. Chapter 9 is a continuation of the biography of the writer and spear shaker'William Shake-speare'up to his death in 1604. Chapter 10 shows why, how and for whom the dramatist Ben Jonson went about the task of procuring the nom de plume Shake-speare. By using the coincidental similarity between the names Shake-speare and Shaksper, Jonson posthumously set up a marionette to claim authorship of the Shakespearian works. Kurt Kreiler (b. 23 June 1950) is a German author and dramaturg. He read philology and philosophy at university, his studies culminating in a doctoral thesis on the short lived Bavarian Republic of People's Councils (1918/19). In 1983 he began his work as a writer for television and radio. In 2009 Insel Verlag published Kreiler's:'The Man who invented Shakespeare'; a book that caused a considerable stir in Germany.'

John Bunyan (1628-1688) is most famously known for writing'The Pilgrim's Progress', a two-part allegory of the Christian pilgrimage toward salvation. The wildly popular book was written in Bedford during Bunyan's time in prison—he was sentenced to twelve years for holding unlicensed church services. During this time Bunyan also completed an autobiography recounting the story of his own conversion from a life of sin and impiety to one of virtue and spiritual regeneration.'Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners'illustrates the tenets of Puritanism through what Bunyan saw as God's saving grace in his own life. He reflects on a sinful youth, and how it led him towards an impious adulthood. Those who read the novel are comforted by Bunyan's honest admission to feelings of despair and doubt; even today, many people can identify with his struggles, and find inspiration in his faith and religious conviction.

Ben Jonson was the greatest of Shakespeare's contemporaries. In the century following his death he was seen by many as the finest of all English writers, living or dead. His fame rested not only on the numerous plays he had written for the theatre, but on his achievements over three decades as principal masque-writer to the early Stuart court, where he had worked in creative, and often stormy, collaboration with Inigo Jones. One of the most accomplished poets of the age, he had become - in fact if not in title - the first Poet Laureate in England. Jonson's life was full of drama. Serving in the Low Countries as a young man, he overcame a Spanish adversary in single combat in full view of both the armies. His early satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, landed him in prison, and brought all theatrical activity in London to a temporary -- and very nearly to a permanent -- standstill. He was'almost at the gallows'for killing a fellow actor after a quarrel, and converted to Catholicism while awaiting execution. He supped with the Gunpowder conspirators on the eve of their planned coup at Westminster. After satirizing the Scots in Eastward Ho! he was imprisoned again; and throughout his career was repeatedly interrogated about plays and poems thought to contain seditious or slanderous material. In his middle years, twenty stone in weight, he walked to Scotland and back, seemingly partly to fulfil a wager, and partly to see the land of his forebears. He travelled in Europe as tutor to the mischievous son of Sir Walter Ralegh, who'caused him to be drunken and dead drunk'and wheeled provocatively through the streets of Paris. During his later years he presided over a sociable club in the Apollo Room in Fleet Street, mixed with the most learned scholars of his day, and viewed with keen interest the political, religious, and scientific controversies of the day. Ian Donaldson's new biography draws on freshly discovered writings by and about Ben Jonson, and locates his work within the social and intellectual contexts of his time. Jonson emerges from this study as a more complex and volatile character than his own self-declarations (and much modern scholarship) would allow, and as a writer whose work strikingly foresees - and at times pre-emptively satirizes - the modern age.

The diary which Samuel Pepys kept from January 1660 to May 1669...is one of our greatest historical records and... a major work of English literature, writes the renowned historian Paul Johnson. A witness to the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, Pepys chronicled the events of his day. Originally written in a cryptic shorthand, Pepys's diary provides an astonishingly frank and diverting account of political intrigues and naval, church, and cultural affairs, as well as a quotidian journal of daily life in London during the Restoration.In 1825, when Pepys's memoirs were first published, Francis Jeffrey of The Edinburgh Review declared,'We can scarcely say that we wish it a page shorter... it is very entertaining thus to be transported into the very heart of a time so long gone by; and to be admitted into the domestic intimacy, as well as the public councils of a man of great activity and circulation in the reign of Charles II.'Edited and abridged by literary critic and author Richard Le Gallienne, this edition features an Introduction by Robert Louis Stevenson.

For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language.Against the backdrop of plague, civil war, and regicide, with John Milton composing diplomatic correspondence for Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Wren drawing up plans to rebuild London, and Isaac Newton advancing the empirical study of the world around us, Tomalin weaves a breathtaking account of a figure who has passed on to us much of what we know about seventeenth-century London. We witness Pepys's early life and education, see him advising King Charles II before running to watch the great fire consume London, learn about the great events of the day as well as the most intimate personal details that Pepys encrypted in the Diary, follow him through his later years as a powerful naval administrator, and come to appreciate how Pepys's singular literary enterprise would in many ways prefigure our modern selves. With exquisite insight and compassion, Samuel Pepys captures the uniquely fascinating figure whose legacy lives on more than three hundred years after his death.

John Dryden was England's most outstanding and controversial writer for the last four decades of the seventeenth century. He dominated the literary world as a satirist, a skilled and versatile dramatist, a pioneer of literary criticism, a writer of religious poetry, and an eloquent translator from the great classical poets. The present book discusses Dryden's career both chronologically and thematically, taking issue with his enemies'denigration of his integrity, and revealing him as a subtle, passionate and sceptical writer.

George Campman (1559-1634) is one of the most important literary figures of the English Renaissance. A powerful personality, melancholy and witty, his style by turns obscure and elegant, he attempted almost every genre of poetry practised in his day: mythological narrative, philosophical poem, panegyric, elegy, comedy, tragedy, masque, and translation from the classics. This book is the first full-length critical study in English of all his works, poems, plays, and translations, considered in detail in relation to their genres, and in terms of Chapman's intellectual and aesthetic development. The major non-dramatic poems, the tragedies (which have often been the subject of critical comment) and'Chapman's Homer'receive the largest share of attention, but the comedies, in which Chapman was a stylish innovator, and the minor translations are also discussed at length, and an attempt is made to place Chapman among his great contemporaries. In tracing the relationship between Chapman's art and his aesthetic, moral, and intellectual notions, Professor MacLure has made a valuable contribution to the study of Renaissance thought and literature, and introduced an unusual poetic personality to readers who knows Chapman only in fragments or by allusion.

This reinterpretation of Dryden's life and works shows how his writings were influenced by important contemporaries, the power struggles of Restoration politics, and the friendships and rivalries of society. Professor McFadden sees Dryden's poems, plays, and essays as forms of address immediately related to the historical moment and the patron or dedicatee. This approach created a dialogue between the writer and his age that enabled him to interpret some of the deepest and still inchoate social and political attitudes of his day.The author traces Dryden's rise to notoriety, along with the development of the poetic techniques he used to acquire and form his audience. Dryden's work for the theater figures prominently in the analysis, including the prologues, epilogues, and especially the dedications, which have never before been exploited. Historical and biographical findings lead Professor McFadden to new readings of major works, lie also draws important conclusions bearing upon the genre of the heroic play, the relationships between lampoon, satire, and comedy in Restoration writing, and the sense in which the term'Augustan'may be applied to that writing. Finally, he demonstrates that Dryden was a writer in the fullest contemporary sense of the word: a worker in language, carrying on a creative exchange with the contingencies and forms of his time.Originally published in 1978.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An introduction to women writers of the English Renaissance which takes up 44 works, many as thumbnail sketches; shows how women's writing was hampered by the assumption that poets were male, by restriction to pious subject matter, by the doctrine that only silent women are virtuous, by criticism that praised women as patrons or muses and ignored their writing, and above all by crippling educational theories.Originally published in 1987.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In contrast to previous studies that have portrayed Mary Sidney as a demure, retiring woman, this biography shows that she was actually an outspoken and dynamic figure. Basing her work on primary sources including account books, legal documents, diaries, and family letters, Hannay shows that Sidney was a vibrant, eloquent, self-assertive woman who was deeply involved in Protestant politics. Although she did confine her writings to appropriately feminine genres, she called herself'Sister of Philip Sidney'to establish a literary and political identity. As a Phoenix rising from her brother's ashes, she transcended gender restrictions by publishing her brother's writings, by writing and translating works which he would have approved, by assuming his role as literary patron, and by supporting the cause for which he died. Hannay also reveals--via court cases--that in her final years the countess turned from literary to administrative responsibilities, contending with jewel thieves, pirates, and murderers.