Böcker av Jennifer Bowers

The 18th century in Britain was a transition period for literature. Patronage, either by a benefactor or through subscription, lingered even as the publishing and bookselling industries developed. The practice of reviewing books became well established during the second half of the century, with the first periodical founded in 1749. For the literary scholar, these gradual changes mean that different search strategies are required to conduct research into primary and secondary source material across the era.Literary Research and the British Eighteenth Century addresses these unique challenges. It examines how the following all contribute to the richness of literary research for this era: book and periodical publishing; a growing literate society; dissemination of literature through salons, private societies, and coffee houses; the growing importance of book reviews; the explosion of publishing; and the burgeoning of primary source material available through new publishing and digital initiatives in the 21st century.This volume explores primary and secondary resources, including general literary research guides; union library catalogs; print and online bibliographies; scholarly journals; manuscripts and archives; 18th-century books, newspapers, and periodicals; contemporary reception; and electronic texts and journals, as well as Web resources. Each chapter addresses the research methods and tools best used to extract relevant information and compares and evaluates sources, making this book an invaluable guide to any literary scholar and student of the British eighteenth century.

Recognizing that every literary era presents scholars with particular challenges, this volume covers the best practices and describes important reference resources, both print and electronic, that can be used in conducting literary research of the British Renaissance and Early Modern period. Although the primary emphasis is on literature produced in England, the guide also covers literature from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. This book addresses specific research characteristics integral to studying the period, including a more inclusive canon and the predominance of Shakespeare, a dual environment of print and manuscript production, the challenges of reading early modern handwriting, a lack of reviewing media, the role of translations, and researching non-standardized genres, among others. Central to this volume and to literary research of the era are the equally valid approaches to studying this literature through the more traditional Renaissance lens or through the varying theoretical approaches falling under the rubric early modern.Bowers and Keeran explore primary and secondary research resources of this era, including general literary research guides; union library catalogs; print and online bibliographies; scholarly journals; manuscripts and archives; microfilm and digitization projects; 17th-century periodicals; contemporary reception; translations and lexicons; genres; and electronic texts, journals, and Web resources. A final chapter, entitled "e;Researching a Thorny Problem,"e; demonstrates how many of the research tools and strategies presented in the volume can be employed to explore a question that perhaps has no definitive answer. Each chapter addresses how research methods and tools are best used to extract relevant information and compare and evaluate sources. The strengths and weaknesses of core and specialized electronic and print research tools and standard search techniques are also examined, making this book an invaluable guide to any scholar of the Renaissance and early modern era.