Summary

The new edition of this successful anthology continues to challenge the boundaries of eighteenth-century literary study whilst thorough revisions make it even more useful to teachers and students.

The new edition of this successful anthology continues to challenge the boundaries of eighteenth-century literary study whilst thorough revisions make it even more useful to teachers and students. Includes more Dryden and Behn, as well as Congreve's The Way of the World. Retains the historical span and range of texts, canonical and previously marginalised, that made the first edition so attractive. Continues to represent many texts in their entirety, including Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, Eliza Haywood's Fantomina, Aphra Behn's Oronooko, Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock and Daniel Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters. An edited volume of critical essays, British Literature 1640-1789: A Critical Reader (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), accompanies this anthology providing the material for a complete course.