DARIO CASTIGLIONE is Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Exeter. LESLEY SHARPE is Senior Lecturer in German, University of Exeter. Lesley Sharpe studied for her MA and Dphil at Oxford. She also spent time as a postdoctoral Hanseatic Fellow at the University of Hamburg. She taught for many years at the University of Exeter and was then appointed to the Chair of German at the University of Bristol. She returned to Exeter in 2003 to a new Chair of German. From 1994 to 2000 she was Germanic Editor of the Modern Language Review. She has served on the Arts and Humanities Research Board research panel for Modern Languages and was a member of the German, Dutch and Scandinavian panel for the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. She is currently Chair of the national organization Women in German Studies.

This carefully organized and scholarly collection can justifiably claim to have tested out the usefulness of the public/private distinction in a variety of new ways: the result is a thought-provoking read which will contain something of interest to most scholars of the eighteenth century.Journal of European Studies

• ContentsPreface, Dario Castiglionepreface, Lesley Sharpethis, that and the other - public, social and private in the 17th and 18th centuries, John Brewerregendering the republic of letters - private association in the public sphere, 1780-89, Dena Goodmanaddressing the public in 18th-century French fiction, Malcolm Cookscandalous femininity - prostitution and 18th-century narrative, Vivien Jonesthe fear of public disorder - marriage between revolution and reaction, Ursula VogelTheodor Gottlieb von Hippel - argumentative strategies in the debate on the rights of women, Lesley Sharpeliteratures of publicity and the right to freedom of the press in late-18th-century Germany - the case of Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, John Christian Laursencensorship and the conception of the public in late-18th-century Germany - or, are censorship and public opinion mutually exclusive?, Edoardo Tortaroloopinion's metamorphosis - Hume and the perception of public authority, Dario Castiglionean impartial actor - the private and the public sphere in Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments", Maria Luisa PesanteWilliam Godwin and the idea of historical commemoration - history as public memory and private sentiment, Mark Salber Phillipsa historical postscript, Jonathan Barry