These Paraphrases address the modern reader with the relevance of the moral issues they define and the perennial importance of the theological questions they raise.
Exploiting Erasmus examines the legacy of Erasmus in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the overthrow of James II in 1688 and studies the various ways in which his works were received, manipulated, and used in religious controversies that threatened both church and state.
While other Bible catalogs are available, this comprehensive reference book is destined to become the standard in the field. Chamberlin's one-volume work traces the publication history of multiple editions of Bible translations and offers valuable decriptive annotations. The catalog not only includes complete Bibles, but also Old and New Testaments, partial texts, commentaries that include translations, children's Bibles, Apocryphal writings, and the Koran, as well. Other bibliographies are usually limited to editions commonly found in academic libraries, but Chamberlin's guide also includes Bibles found in private collections. Overall, this catalogue contains more than five times as many entries of different English translations as two other Bible bibliographies, those by Hill and Herbert, combined. The entries are grouped in 151 categories, and within each category entries are listed in chronological order. The accompanying annotations identify the translator and provide an overview of the contents of each work. The detailed indexes make this bibliography a convenient tool for researchers. Bible scholars, collectors, and rare book dealers will find this catalogue a necessary addition to their libraries.
Holy Scripture Speaks reveals the rich complexity of the literary, theological, and cultural dimensions of Erasmus' Paraphrases on the New Testament and indicates future directions that research in this area should take.
Marta Straznicky offers a detailed historical analysis of early modern women's closet plays: plays explicitly written for reading, rather than public performance. She reveals that such works were part of an alternative dramatic tradition, an elite and private literary culture, which was understood as intellectually superior to and politically more radical than commercial drama. Elizabeth Cary, Jane Lumley, Anne Finch and Margaret Cavendish wrote their plays in this conjunction of the public and the private at a time when male playwrights dominated the theatres. In her astute readings of the texts, their contexts and their physical appearance in print or manuscript, Straznicky has produced many fresh insights into the place of women's closet plays both in the history of women's writing and in the history of English drama.
To the extent that she is popularly known, Katherine Parr (1512–48) is the woman who survived King Henry VIII as his sixth and last wife. She merits far greater recognition, however, on several other fronts. Fluent in French, Italian, and Latin, Parr also began, out of necessity, to learn Spanish when she ascended to the throne in 1543. As Henry’s wife and queen of England, she was a noted patron of the arts and music and took a personal interest in the education of her stepchildren, Princesses Mary and Elizabeth and Prince Edward. Above all, Parr commands interest for her literary labors: she was the first woman to publish under her own name in English in England. For this new edition, Janel Mueller has assembled the four publications attributed to Parr—Psalms or Prayers, Prayers or Meditations, The Lamentation of a Sinner, and a compilation of prayers and Biblical excerpts written in her hand—as well as her extensive correspondence, which is collected here for the first time. Mueller brings to this volume a wealth of knowledge of sixteenth-century English culture. She marshals the impeccable skills of a textual scholar in rendering Parr’s sixteenth-century English for modern readers and provides useful background on the circumstances of and references in Parr’s letters and compositions. Given its scope and ambition, Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence will be an event for the English publishing world and will make an immediate contribution to the fields of sixteenth-century literature, reformation studies, women’s writing, and Tudor politics.