Hugh Amory - Böcker

Volume Three of Henry Fielding's Miscellanies, first published as a three-volume set in 1743, consists in its entirety of a major work of fiction, The history of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. Jonathan Wild takes its title from the `thief-taker' and gang-leader of that name who was hanged in 1725, but in Fielding's hands, the history of Wild is transformed into a mock-hostorical work of sustained irony aimed at all who would be `great men'. The general introduction to this edition sets the novel against its historical and biographical background and argues against the view, common since the mid-nineteenth century, that it is a personal satire directed at the figure of Sir Robert Walpole. In both the general and the textual introductions, the editors also offer a fresh view on questions about the date and history of the work's composition. Full explanatory notes and commentary place Fielding's allusions and details in their contemporary context. As in previous volumes of the Weslyan Edition, this provides critical, unmodernized text, based on the Greg-Bowers `Rationale of Copy-text'. The version is that of the first edition, with an appendix giving all variants in wording and presentation in the 1754 revision. In his introduction the textual editor lays out the rationale for his choice of version. This volume also includes, for the first time in modern edition, Fielding's list of subscribers to the Miscellanies, along with detailed biographical notes and an analysis of the subscription list by the textual editor.

This is the second volume of Fielding's Miscellanies, first published as a three-volume set in 1743. Its major work is the fantasy A Journey from This World to the Next, Fielding's richest and most extensive piece of prose fiction outside his three novels and Jonathan Wild. Its theme, described by Gibbon as `the history of human nature', is the excoriation of false greatness and over-weening ambition, one of the great moral ideas of the age. The annotation and commentary to this edition present new evidence about Fielding's manipulation of historical sources in the Journey, which is shown to be both artistically complete and thematically consistent with the other material in the Miscellanies.The remaining two works in this volume are both plays which Fielding included at a late stage of planning for the book: the farce Eurydice, a burlesque of mythological figures who function as vehicles for topical satire, and The Wedding Day, a revision of an intrigue comedy written early in his career but staged for the first time in 1743, only a few months before the Miscellanies appeared.The introduction reviews this period of Fielding's career and describes the circumstances leading up to the original publication of Miscellanies by subscription, and the historical and biographical contexts of the works included in Volume Two. The text follows the significant features of the 1743 presentation, as far as possible; the Greg-Bowers `Rationale' hitherto observed in the Wesleyan Edition is refined and augmented by more recent textual theorizing. The full,uncensored text of The Wedding Day, from Larpent MS 39 in the Huntington Library, is given as an appendix to the censored form published in Miscellanies.

'he carried Good-nature to that wonderful and uncommon Height, that he never did a single Injury to Man or Woman, by which he himself did not expect to reap some Advantage'The real-life Jonathan Wild, gangland godfather and self-styled 'Thieftaker General', controlled much of the London underworld until he was executed for his crimes in 1725. Even during his lifetime his achievements attracted attention; after his death balladeers sang of his exploits, and satirists made connections between his success and the triumph of corruption in high places. Henry Fielding built on these narratives to produce one of the greatest sustained satires in the English language. Published in 1743, at a time when the modern novel had yet to establish itself as a fixed literary form, Jonathan Wild is at the same time a brilliant black comedy, an incisive political satire, and a profoundly serious exploration of human 'greatness' and 'goodness'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Hugh Amory (1930-2001) was at once the most rigorous and the most methodologically sophisticated historian of the book in early America. Gathered here are his essays, articles, and lectures on the subject, two of them printed for the first time. An introduction by David D. Hall sets this work in context and indicates its significance; Hall has also provided headnotes for each of the essays.Amory used his training as a bibliographer to reexamine every major question about printing, bookmaking, and reading in early New England. Who owned Bibles, and in what formats? Did the colonial book trade consist of books imported from Europe or of local production? Can we go behind the iconic status of the Bay Psalm Book to recover its actual history? Was Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom really a bestseller? And why did an Indian gravesite contain a scrap of Psalm 98 in a medicine bundle buried with a young Pequot girl?In answering these and other questions, Amory writes broadly about the social and economic history of printing, bookselling and book ownership. At the heart of his work is a determination to connect the materialities of printed books with the workings of the book trades and, in turn, with how printed books were put to use. This is a collection of great methodological importance for anyone interested in literature and history who wants to make those same connections.