The "emergence of literature in eighteenth-century France" changes our understanding of when, how and why modern ideas of literature emerged in France. Using a unique blend of literary and digital methods, it argues that it was in the mid eighteenth century, rather than the nineteenth (as many have claimed), that the word littrature…

This article describes a book review assignment that is an application of enlightenment practices to a modern learning environment. This paper encourages both student learning in the content of enlightenment ideas and the methods of critical, accessible writing. Students engage in metacognition by using the critical reasoning capacities of their…

As a professor of eighteenth-century British Literature I am often tasked (like my colleagues in other areas) with constructing a period based syllabus that "represents" this portion of literary history. Every semester, without fail, I am befuddled by the word "represents." How, exactly, do I want to "represent" the…

The author discusses their experiences teaching an upper-division seminar course in a traditional face-to-face setting, and re-designing a "long eighteenth century" survey course for delivery online. The article thus explores spatial strategies in both face-to-face and online courses, and suggests ways in which they can be particularly…

Examines the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalog (ESTC) database, which consists of items printed in the English language or in Great Britain and its colonies during the eighteenth century. Scope of ESTC, access and fees, entering ESTC, access points, problem of subject access, browsing, and extent of coverage are highlighted. (EJS)

Describes a tour of the places of Jane Austen's novels that is offered by the Association for Cultural Exchange (ACE) in Cambridge, England. (JL)

Surveys eighteenth-century American earth science publications which describe geological phenomena and analyzes them for patterns. Traces the development of geology as a specific field of study in America. (DC)

A new electronic bibliography, the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalog, currently contains title and location information for 315,000 English-language books, monographs, and ephemera printed during the eighteenth century. The database is available to scholars on the Research Libraries Information Network and the British Library Automated…

The London Stage Information Bank (LSIB) is a machine-readable text of "The London Stage, 1660-1800," an 11-volume publication that contains information on plays, entertainments and afterpieces, casts, box-receipts, and contemporary comment compiled from playbills, newspapers, and theatrical diaries of the period. The LSIB can be…

The holdings of the Darton Collection, a special library of children's books published in England before 1850, are discussed. The collection, housed at Columbia University in New York City, includes childrens' games and illustrations as well as books. (PP)

To determine what messages women found in magazines regarding their roles in society in the late eighteenth century, a study analyzed three magazines: "The Ladies Magazine" (1792-93), "The American Magazine" (1787-88), and "The (Philadelphia) Weekly Magazine" (1798-99). All three featured a mixture of essays, verse,…

Addresses the basic conflict between the Enlightenment's humanitarian credo and slavery, the opposing beliefs of the pro-slavery movement and the abolitionists, and the resulting changes in the perceptions of blacks brought about by the emancipation literature of the French philosophers and writers of the eighteenth century. (BJV)

Discusses the relationship between the prominence of themes of the literate gentry woman in Chinese fiction and the rise of women poets. Examines later Japanese fiction to find influences of the woman reader and of earlier Chinese works. Explores the scholar-beauty novels, women as warriors, female martyrdom, and the equating of virtue with…