Library

Collins Spanish Paperback Dictionary

A Glossary of Literary Terms

M. H. Abrams

Women in Print: Writing Women and Women's Magazines from the Restoration to the Accession of Victoria

Alison Adburgham

A Dictionary of 19th Century History (Penguin Classic History)

John Belchem, Richard Price

A Dictionary of Eighteenth-century History (Penguin Classic History S.)

Jeremy Black, Roy Porter The 18th century was a dramatic time of spectacular contrasts: the age of englightenment, exploration and improvement on the one hand, and of revolution, rioting, cruelty and vice on the other. It saw the wealthy empires of Europe expand to the Pacific; the great philosophers of the age - Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hume -redefine thinking; the beginning of industrialization; the advent of the novel. Yet beneath the age of reason lay a darker history of serfdom and slavery, poverty and crime, typified by the gin-soaked London underworld and the Bacchanalian debauchery of the Hell-Fire Club. Revolts and uprisings simmered; the French Revolution broke out; America won independence; the rights of man were proclaimed (and Mary Wollestonecraft published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"). This guide covers this exciting, rumbustious world in every aspect, stretching as far as Africa, China and India, covering its personalities, politics and ideas, with information on artists, writers and musicians including Mozart, Blake, Goya, Johnson and Hogarth. A helpful chronology, charts and maps make this a useful guide to all the exoticism, adventure and promise of a remarkable age.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Wordsworth Reference)

E.Cobham Brewer

Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography

D.C. Browning

Bill Bryson's Dictionary

Bill Bryson

100 Great Kings, Queens, and Rulers of the World

John Canning

THE NUTTALL DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS

G. ELGIE CHRIST

THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS.

J. M. and M. J. Cohen

The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature

Bernice E. Cullinan, Diane G. Person With 1,200 biographical-critical entries and nearly 100 topical articles all written by experts in the field, "The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature" is the most complete and up-to-date single-volume reference source on the subject. The work covers 150 years of children's literature in many cultures: The United States, Great Britain, Canada, continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Asia. Biographical-critical entries include authors as well as illustrators. A distinguished board of advisers, made up of scholars, editors, librarians, authors, and artists, has helped make this encyclopedia even more user-friendly.

A Guide to Australian Folklore: From Ned Kelly to Aeroplane Jelly

Gwenda Davey

A Chaucer Glossary

Norman Davis

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary

H.W. Fowler, F.G. Fowler, Judy Pearsall Anyone looking for a concise dictionary of English is currently faced with a difficult choice, since 2001 has seen the publication of new editions of three major works; the Concise Oxford Dictionary the Collins Concise Dictionary and the Encarta Concise Dictionary. All cover the same core material and at first sight seem much the same, giving definitions that place the most common sense first, guidance on such things as how formal or informal a word is and information on the origin of a word and when it first came into the language. However, a closer look at the text shows that they all have different strengths.

The Concise Oxford is the most grown up of the three. It saves space for other things by not giving pronunciation guidance for standard English vocabulary (such as "cheese") but only for words that might be difficult ("cheetah", "Chekhovian"). Instead it gives extra information on phrases, so that the reader does not have to search through "hard" for "hard cheese" is under "cheese". There is no major encyclopaedic element, although "Chekhovian" will give you the basic information on Chekhov, and there is an appendix giving information on countries of the world, as well as others on proof marks, weights and measures, different alphabets, abbreviations used in texting and an extensive guide to good English. This is the only one of the three to give good coverage of obsolete words, and is particularly strong on science and foreign words used in English. —Julia Cresswell

Golden Bough : The Roots of Religion and Folklore

James G. Frazer Before Joseph Campbell became the world's most famous practitioner of comparative mythology, there was Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally published in two volumes in 1890, but Frazer became so enamored of his topic that over the next few decades he expanded the work sixfold, then in 1922 cut it all down to a single thick edition suitable for mass distribution. The thesis on the origins of magic and religion that it elaborates "will be long and laborious," Frazer warns readers, "but may possess something of the charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs." Chief among those customs—at least as the book is remembered in the popular imagination—is the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.

While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism—sheer cultural imperialism, really—that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: "If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?" (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that "primitive" races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that "a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural." And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories——"that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual" (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) "are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs." Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. —Ron Hogan

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

Gibaldi

The Wordsworth Manual of Ornament

Richard Glazier This manual provides an elementary knowledge of architecture and historical ornament, and comprises a guide to ornament through the ages. It analyzes the relationship of ornament to social and religious life.

A History of Australian Literature

H. M. Green

The Dictionary of Feminist Theory

Maggie Humm

The Wordsworth Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (Wordsworth Reference)

George C. Kohn

Exaltation of Larks

James Lipton

The Dune Encyclopedia

Willis E. (compiled from writings of Frank Herbert) McNelly

Heroes & Monsters: The Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Jess Nevins This book-length celebration and analysis of the Artistic Event of the Century includes an exclusive interview with and introduction by League of Extraordinary Gentlemen co-creator and author Alan Moore; commentary by co-creator and illustrator Kevin ONeill; detailed, panel-by-panel annotations of the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series; and essays on the literary and historical origins of the various members of the League and their creators.

A Blazing World: The Unofficial Companion to the Second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Jess Nevins A BLAZING WORLD is the invaluable book length analysis of the second LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN comic series and graphic novel, the follow up to last years successful HEROES & MONSTERS companion volume. This second companion contains exclusive interviews and commentary by award-winning series creators Alan Moore and Kevin ONeill; detailed, panel-by-panel annotations; and a cover by John Picacio.

A History of English Drama 1660-1900 vol 4