Edited by Leah Dickerman. Essays by Brigid Doherty, Sabine T. Kriebel, Dorothea Dietrich, Michael R. Taylor, Janine Mileaf and Matthew S. Witkovsky. Foreword by Earl A. Powell III.
This dictionary is part of the Oxford Reference Collection: using sustainable print-on-demand technology to make the acclaimed backlist of the Oxford Reference programme perennially available in hardback format. An engrossing guide to English folklore and traditions, with over 1,250 entries. Folklore is connected to virtually every aspect of life, part of the country, age group, and occupation. From the bizarre to the seemingly mundane, it is as much a feature of the modern technological age as of the ancient world. BL Oral and Performance genres-Cheese rolling, Morris dancing, Well-dressingEL BL Superstitions-Charms, Rainbows, WishbonesEL BL Characters-Cinderella, Father Christmas, Robin Hood, Dick WhittingtonEL BL Supernatural Beliefs-Devil's hoofprints, Fairy rings, Frog showersEL BL Calendar Customs-April Fool's Day, Helston Furry Day, Valentine's DayEL
This is by far the most exhaustive biography on Niels Stensen, anatomist, geologist and bishop, better known as "Nicolaus Steno". We learn about the scientist’s family and background in Lutheran Denmark, of his teachers at home and abroad, of his studies and travels in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Germany, of his many pioneering achievements in anatomy and geology, of his encounters with Swammerdam, Malpighi and with members of the newly established Royal Society of London and the Accademia del Cimento in Florence, and with the philosopher Spinoza. It further treats Stensen’s religious conversion. The book includes the full set of Steno's anatomical and geological scientific papers in original language. The editors thoroughly translated the original Latin text to English, and included numerous footnotes on the background of this bibliographic and scientific treasure from the 17th century.
Maps make the world visible, but they also obscure, distort, idealize. This wide-ranging study traces the impact of cartography on the changing cultural meanings of space, offering a fresh analysis of the mental and material mapping of early modern England and Ireland. Combining cartographic history with critical cultural studies and literary analysis, it examines the construction of social and political space in maps, in cosmography and geography, in historical and political writing, and in the literary works of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser and Drayton.