Difficult pasts

This book examines Shakespeare's works in relation to different contexts of production and reception. Several of the chapters explore Shakespeare's relationship with actual printers, patrons and readers, while others consider the representation of writing, reading and print within his works themselves. The collection gives us glimpses into different Shakespeares: Shakespeare the man who lived and worked in Elizabethan and Jacobean London; Shakespeare the author of the works attributed to him; and 'Shakespeare', the construction of his colleagues, printers and readers. In examining these Shakespeares, and the interactions, overlaps and disjunctions between them, the chapters offer different conceptions of Shakespearean 'authorship'. Some chapters try to trace Shakespeare as the creative force behind his works, charting, for example, what variations between different editions of the same play might tell us about his processes of composition. Others focus on the ways in which Shakespeare was the product of a particular historical and cultural moment, and of the processes of publishing and reading. What all of the contributors share, however, is a sense of the importance of books – the books Shakespeare read, the books he represented within his works, the books within which his works were first read – to our understanding of Shakespeare's cultural significance for his contemporaries and for us.

Royal successions will prompt observers of all kinds to look back at the reign that has passed, and also forward to that which is dawning. This book represents both the breadth and the quality of succession literature across the Stuart era (1603-1714). It includes at least one example of each significant kind of writing: a proclamation announcing a change of reign, diary entries, sermons, a newspaper report, two speeches by incoming monarchs and so forth. But there is also a consistent focus on poetry. Proclamations of Lord King James to the Crown (1603), his speech delivered in the Parliament (1604), the poems of Sir John Davies (1603) are among those featured in the first part of the book. Part II includes an anonymously authored news report details the royal marriage of King Charles and Lady Henrietta Maria (1625). Following this, the book presents the newsbook, Mercurius Politicus (December 1653), which provides an account of Oliver's inauguration as Protector and offers a wealth of detail about ceremonial proceedings. Part IV has a diary entry of Samuel Pepys recounting the return of Stuart brothers and describing the ceremonies that greeted Charles at Dover, and providing details arising from Pepys's proximity to unfolding events. The fifth part includes a coronation sermon (April 1685), presenting extracts from Francis Turner's discussion of Solomon's title and his consideration of the relationship between Solomon and the nation of Israel. The Observator's response on William's death (April 1702), penned by John Tutchin, is also featured in the book.

Irish women writers entered the international publishing scene in unprecedented numbers in the period between 1878 and 1922. This collection of new essays explores how Irish women, officially disenfranchised through much of that era, felt inclined and at liberty to exercise their political influence through the unofficial channels of their literary output. By challenging existing and often narrowly-defined conceptions of what constitutes ‘politics’, the chapters investigate Irish women writers’ responses to, expressions of, and dialogue with a contemporary political landscape that included not only the debates surrounding nationalism and unionism, but also those concerning education, cosmopolitanism, language, Empire, economics, philanthropy, socialism, the marriage ‘market’, the publishing industry, the commercial market, and employment. The volume demonstrates how women from a variety of religious, social, and regional backgrounds – including Emily Lawless, L. T. Meade, Katharine Tynan, Lady Gregory, Rosa Mulholland, and the Ulster writers Ella Young, Beatrice Grimshaw, and F. E. Crichton – used their work to advance their own private and public political concerns through astute manoeuvrings both in the expanding publishing industry and against the partisan expectations of an ever-growing readership. Close readings of individual texts are framed by new archival research and detailed historical contextualisation. Offering fresh critical perspectives by internationally-renowned scholars including Lauren Arrington, Heidi Hansson, Margaret Kelleher, Patrick Maume, James H. Murphy, and Eve Patten, Irish Women’s Writing, 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty is an innovative and essential contribution to the study of Irish literature as well as women’s writing at the turn of the twentieth century.