The Rise of the Novel is Ian Watt's classic description of the interworkings of social conditions, changing attitudes, and literary practices during the period when the novel emerged as the dominant literary form of the individualist era.

In a new foreword, W. B. Carnochan accounts for the increasing interest in the English novel, including the contributions that Ian Watt's study made to literary studies: his introduction of sociology and philosophy to traditional criticism.

'The crisis of liberal education is ... an intellectual crisis of the first magnitude, which constitutes the crisis of our civilization.' These doomsday words of Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind (1987) are among the latest and most politically inflammatory manifestations of a 'crisis' that this book demonstrates has been going on for two centuries. In contrast to the heated polemics and hyperbole of current debates concerning the role of higher education in the United States, this eloquent, balanced, and witty book seeks to bring sense to a volatile subject by reminding us that...

This is a study of the famous controversy between Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, fellow explorers who quarreled over Speke's claim to have discovered the source of the Nile during their African expedition in 1857-59. Speke died of a gunshot wound, probably accidental, the day before a scheduled debate with Burton in 1864. Burton has had the upper hand in subsequent accounts. Speke has been called a "cad." In light of new evidence and after a careful reading of duelling texts, Carnochan concludes that the case against Speke remains unproven-and that the story, as normally told,...

This is a study of the famous controversy between Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, fellow explorers who quarreled over Speke's claim to have discovered the source of the Nile during their African expedition in 1857-59. Speke died of a gunshot wound, probably accidental, the day before a scheduled debate with Burton in 1864. Burton has had the upper hand in subsequent accounts. Speke has been called a "cad." In light of new evidence and after a careful reading of duelling texts, Carnochan concludes that the case against Speke remains unproven-and that the story, as normally told,...

From the eighteenth century to the present, travellers, explorers, journalists, imaginative writers like Samuel Johnson, and legendary reggae musician Bob Marley have shared a fascination with Abyssinia. So did even earlier writers and mapmakers, who thought Abyssinia was the land of the mythical (and fabulously rich) Christian ruler, Prester John. The principal subject of this book is the allure of the exotic, as represented by Abyssinia, to the British imagination. In addition to Johnson and Marley, some others included are the eighteenth-century Scot James Bruce, nineteenth-century...

Confessions of a Dodger Fan is the story of an eight-year old boy in Manhattan who turns on the radio, hears Red Barber broadcasting a Dodger game, and becomes a lifelong fan. Mickey Owen's passed ball against the Yankees in 1941 is his first experience of bitter loss. During the war, while his father is stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, he sees his first game, between two navy teams, and comes home with an autographed ball signed by, among others, the Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, one of the many players then in service. He grows up on John Tunis's baseball stories for young readers. He...