Library digitization has made more than 100,000 nineteenth-century English-language books available to the public. Do the books that have been digitized reflect the population of published books? An affirmative answer would allow book and literary historians to use holdings of major digital libraries as proxies for the population of published…

The idea of education in nineteenth-century women's writing revolves around social class, social mores, and the subtleties of the writer's imagination. Nowhere can this be seen more vividly and thoroughly than in Charlotte Bronte's novel, "Jane Eyre". The book's opening scene, striking in its symbolic detail, highlights and foreshadows the…

Reviews a 35-volume set of reproductions of nineteenth-century juvenile literature. (AEA)

Examines the work of Kate Sanborn (1839-1917), who edited an anthology of women's humor and crusaded for 20 years to alter the stereotype of women's humorlessness. It is suggested that her work adds to our knowledge of feminist history, as well as presaging current theoretical developments in the psychology of women. (Author/ABB)

Reviews eighteenth and nineteenth century Canadian literature. Notes that despite its cultural significance, this early literature has been dismissed by critics and scholars. (MM)

During his long career as medical doctor, professor, lecturer, and author, Oliver Wendell Holmes produced, among other notable works, three novels designed to caution the medical profession against giving precedence to cures over causes in the healing process: "Elsie Venner,""the Guardian Angel," and "A Mortal…

Describes and presents examples of work from the Western Michigan school of bad versemakers, a group of nineteenth century poets who strove to give their frontier experiences high seriousness, but achieved, at best, unintentional humor. (MM)

The social and literary representation of the unmarried woman of "a certain age"--the spinster--provides a convenient focus for observing the overall progress of all women in English life. As the single woman's stature increased in the esteem of her culture, English writers began to reflect the changing social attitudes by depicting her in ever…

This article is for teachers who wish to introduce their advanced language students to literature but have not yet found an appropriate text. Five major reasons for choosing Georg Buchner's 1837 drama Woyzeck are given: the drama's brevity, uncomplicated language, contemporary relevance and the timelessness of its themes. (LET)

Designed for the student of historical rhetoric who does not have a reading knowledge of Greek and Latin, this book (a revised edition of a volume first published in 1983) is divided into six chronological sections, each written by a specialist in the rhetoric of a different historical period. Each section: (1) provides an overview of the primary…

Designed for the student of historical rhetoric who does not have a reading knowledge of Greek and Latin, this book is divided into 6 sections, each written by a specialist in the rhetoric of the different historical periods. Each section (1) provides an overview of the primary works, their authors, and the rhetorical issues of the period; (2)…

Surveys research on children's literature and humor by professionals in the field. Presents an overview of pre-twentieth century books which indicate the main lines of development of humor in children's literature. (FMW)

Reviews literature from the first quarter of the nineteenth-century Victorian period. Examines how several Victorian novelists constructed new kinds of heroic stories, combining moral instruction with dynamic storytelling for their young audience. (MG)

Noah Webster and William Holmes McGuffey, who made important contributions to reading and education, present an interesting study in comparison and contrast. Although Webster is remembered most as a lexicographer, his speller contributed greatly to the early teaching of reading in the United States. His literary activities as a patriot, a…

A Mount Holyoke College course on gender and the development of modern fiction focused on the novel in eighteenth-century France, emphasizing women writers, writings about women, and the application of modern feminist criticism to the genre. (MSE)