ADAM MAX COHEN is Assistant Professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA.

"Cohen's straightforward manner combined with his enthusiasm and accessible prose is enought to grab any reader's interest. For academics, Cohen presents many new points and perspectives, while for those with no prior knowledge of the subject, Cohen provides a gripping introduction." - The Kelvingrove Review

• Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: A New Instrument The Clockwork Self: Mechanical Clockwork and Early Modern Discipline Confessions of a Man in Print: Cataloguing Erasmian Literary Ambition Painted Words Put into the Press: The Forms and Functions of Ambition in Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender All Works and No Plays: Jonson's 1616 Folio and the Redefinition of Dramatic Authorship 175 The Nimble Gunner and the Versatile Prince: Agility and the Early Modern Military Revolution 219 Perspectives on Perspective: The Philosophic Eye and the Prehistory of the Telescope the and the Microscope 252 'A New Perspective Glass': Telescopic Discoveries of Universal Uniformity 281 'To see a World in a Grain of Sand': Microscopic Perspectives on Subvisible Wonders