This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Francis Bacon once wrote, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested... " This is a book to be chewed and digested, and these essays make as satisfying a meal today as when the first edition was published in 1597. Indeed, the present-day reader is amply rewarded for the effort of taking in the old-fashioned English...

"Two Gentlemen of Verona is commonly agreed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, and probably his first play. A comedy built around the confusions of doubling, cross - dressing and identity, it is also a play about the ideal of male friendship an what happens to those friendships when men fall in love. William Carroll's engaging Introduction focuses on the traditions and sources that stand behind the play and explores Shakespeare's unique and bold treatment...

Conventional historical wisdom focuses on the sixties as the era of pivotal change that swept the nation, yet, as Fred Kaplan argues, it was 1959 that ushered in the wave of tremendous cultural, political, and scientific shifts that would play out in the turbulent decade that followed. During this vital, overlooked period in American history, pop culture exploded, court rulings unshackled prevously banned books, civil rights laws and protests broadened...

In any time or place literature is often influenced by concepts such as politics, society, philosophy, and in the true Puritan and Anglican fashion, spirituality and the Bible. It is this influence which Edward Dowden has cleverly critiqued. In his foreword, he writes, "Literature, however, and especially what is most valuable in the seventeenth-century cannot be studied without reference to the history of religion." Which is why, although the seventeenth-century...

In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on society rather than the state. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman brings to vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War: the Edwardian aristocracy and the end of their reign; the anarchists of Europe and America, who voiced the protest of the oppressed; Germany, as portrayed through the figure of the self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; the sudden...

The former U.S. secretary of state presents a timely, considered, and personal look at the history and current resurgence of fascism and the virulent threat it poses to international freedom, prosperity, and peace.

Chronicles the life of poetic dramatist Christopher Marlowe, discussing how he challenged English society with his writings, what influence his work had on the literary world, how his life was impacted by the political and social atmosphere of his time, and other related topics.