Graded readers, simplified versions of literature and other texts at graduated levels of difficulty, are widely employed in contexts of foreign language pedagogy and are widely considered to be a form of written-language input ostensibly suitable for a wide array of developmental stages. However, the efficacy of graded readers is not unchallenged,…

This article reviews a writing-intensive course on nineteenth-century aesthetic prose devised for the undergraduate curriculum of the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and considers the results to date. Using examples of students' coursework, the article examines the use of logbooks and creative exercises, considers…

In metabolic terms, publishing in the humanities is more couch potato than sprinter. An idea can take years to move from light-bulb stage to manuscript to finished book. Add another year, or two or three, before an author can expect to see reviews of that book in academic journals. That slows down an already glutted system. "It's just appalling…

In the course of a weeding project at a small community college library, librarians discovered an unusual nineteenth century literary collection consisting of many obscure titles written by people of color, women and ethnic minorities. Though the materials were not rare, they constituted an interesting and valuable set of materials. These…

Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novels and stories exemplify some of the main issues surrounding women's texts and their place in literature: aesthetic value, intellectual challenge, universality, and contemporary popularity. Her work, it may be argued, betrays occasional aesthetic imperfections; however, she produced a tremendous amount of published…

The bifurcation of rhetorical and literary traditions that has impoverished the understanding of disciplinary history as a simultaneously rhetorical and literary event is illustrated. It is demonstrated that defining the sublime experience solely in terms of its aesthetic heritage, and thus obscuring its rhetorical foundations, suppresses those…