Product Description: The History of Jack Connor (1752) is the only (and once very popular) novel of the Irish writer of Huguenot descent, William Chaigneau (1709-1781). An example of sentimental picaresque fiction in the manner of Alain-Rene Lesage's Gil Blas (1715-1747) and Tobias Smollett's Roderick Random (1748), the work also reveals Chaigneau's admiration for Henry Fielding's then-controversial Tom Jones (1749)...read more

Product Description: Umbria, "the Green Heart of Italy," is a fascinating region of Etruscan and Roman monuments, medieval castles and cathedrals, and the Renaissance art of Giotto, ?erugino and the young Raphael. Everywhere, vibrant cities, evocative hill-towns and tranquil villages are set amid glorious landscapes...read more

Product Description: Originally published in 1781, The Triumph of Prudence over Passion; or, The History of Miss Mortimer and Miss Fitzgerald is an unconventional epistolary novel set in Ireland and France in 1779 and 1780, against the background of the patriot political agitation that marked the age of Grattan's parliament...read more

Product Description: Published in London only months after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, Irish Tales is an historical romance offering a Jacobite reading of early Irish history, culminating in Brian Boru's victory over the Viking invaders at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014...read more

Vertue Rewarded; or, The Irish Princess (1693) is one of the earliest examples of Irish prose fiction. Published in London, the novel is set in and around Clonmel, in August 1690, during the wars between the Jacobite James II and the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, later William III. Remarkably, the principal narrative concerning the young Irishwoman Marinda and the foreign Prince of S_______g, is interwoven with interpolated tales, including that of the Irish princess Cluaneesha, set in pre-Norman Ireland, and of the south American Indian Faniaca, whose story begins in Peru during the Spanish conquest of the Incas. Grounding its romance narrative in a detailed Irish setting, Vertue Rewarded draws American material from Royal Commentaries (1688), a translation by the diplomat and scholar, Sir Paul Rycaut, recently Chief Secretary for Ireland, of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's account of native resistance to Spanish imperialism. This edition presents an original-spelling text, with an introduction and extensive annotation designed to make the book readily accessible to scholars, postgraduate and undergraduate students.

"I wrote to be famous, not to be fed," said Laurence Sterne upon publication of his comic masterpiece, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. And indeed, almost overnight, Sterne achieved fame beyond his wildest dreams. In this fascinating biography, Ian Campbell Ross shows how the great comic author combined a genius for self-promotion with a clear grasp of the nascent business of publishing to soar across the cultural and social firmament of mid-18th century England. Ross begins with Sterne's childhood in Yorkshire and follows the young gentleman's progress to Cambridge and then to the Church of England and a humdrum rural vicarage. He describes his unhappy marriage to a woman who suffered a nervous breakdown and at one time believed herself to be the Queen of Bohemia, as well as his many scandalous liaisons with other women, experiences that helped inform his Rabelaisian novel. But the heart of the book is Ross's account of the country parson's sudden rise to prominence, swept up in a frenzy of celebrity excessive even by today's standards. Ross draws us into the glamorous world of literary London--a world of power and privilege ruled by fashionable legislators of taste--showing how Sterne marketed himself, as well as his novel, by seeking favors from influential critics, famous authors, and even leading statesmen. Laurence Sterne: A Life is the first full biography to appear in fifteen years. Ian Campbell Ross makes deft use of recently discovered material, particularly a holograph of Sterne's memoir, to shed new light on the man, his work, and the nature of celebrity.

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