The Cambridge History Of English Literature, 1660-1780 (the New Cambridge History Of English Literature)

the cambridge history of E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E , 1 6 6 0 – 1 7 8 0 * The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660–1780 offers readers discussions of the entire range of literary expression from the Restoration to the end of the eighteenth century. In essays by thirty distinguished scholars, recent historical perspectives and new critical approaches and methods are brought to bear on the classic authors and texts of the period. Forgotten or neglected authors and themes as well as new and emerging genres within the expanding marketplace for printed matter during the eighteenth century receive special attention and emphasis. The volume’s guiding purpose is to examine the social and historical circumstances within which literary production and imaginative writing take place in the period and to evaluate the enduring verbal complexity and cultural insights they articulate so powerfully. J o h n R i c h e t t i is A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He has held Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has taught at Rutgers University and Columbia University. His publications include Popular Fiction before Richardson, – (1969), Defoe’s Narratives: Situations and Structures (1975), Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume ( ) and The English Novel in History, – (1999). He is editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel (Cambridge, 1996). Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 the new cambridge history of E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E The New Cambridge History of English Literature is a programme of reference works designed to offer a broad synthesis and contextual survey of the history of English literature through the major periods of its development. The organisation of each volume reflects the particular characteristics of the period covered, within a general commitment to providing an accessible narrative history through a linked sequence of essays by internationally renowned scholars. The History is designed to accommodate the range of insights and fresh perspectives brought by new approaches to the subject, without losing sight of the need for essential exposition and information. The volumes include valuable reference features, in the form of a chronology of literary and political events, extensive primary and secondary bibliographies and a full index. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature edited by david wallace The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature edited by david loewenstein and janel mueller The Cambridge History of English Literature – edited by john richetti I N P R E PA R AT I O N The Cambridge History of English Romantic Literature edited by james chandler The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature edited by laur a marcus and peter nicholls Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 THE CAMBRIDGE H I S TO RY O F E N G L I S H L I T E R AT U R E , 1660–1780 * Edited by JOHN RICHETTI Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridg