A masterful, highly engaging analysis of how Shakespeare’s plays intersected with the politics and culture of Elizabethan England  
With an ageing, childless monarch, lingering divisions due to the Reformation, and the threat of foreign enemies, Shakespeare’s England was fraught with unparalleled anxiety and complicated problems. In this monumental work, Peter Lake reveals, more than any previous critic, the extent to which Shakespeare’s plays speak to the depth and sophistication of Elizabethan political culture and the Elizabethan imagination.

Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture

The remarkable story of the stylistic, cultural, and technical innovations that drove the surge of comics, caricature, and other print media in 19th-century Europe

The guide to Seventeenth Century Literature and Culture provides students with the ideal introduction to literature and its context from 1603-1688, including: - the historical, cultural and intellectual background including religion, politics and culture during the Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration - major writers and genres including John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and John Milton - concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism - key critical approaches from the eighteenth century to the present - a chronology mapping historical events and literary works and further reading including websites and electronic resources.

The guide to Renaissance Literature and Culture provides students with the ideal introduction to literature and its context from 1533-1642, including: - the historical, cultural and intellectual background including religion, politics, exploration and visual culture - major writers and genres including Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson - concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism - key critical approaches to modernism from contemporary critics to the present - a chronology mapping historical events and literary works and further reading including websites and electronic resources.

This guide to Victorian Literature and Culture provides students with the ideal introduction to literature and its context from 1837-1900, including: - the historical, cultural and intellectual background including politics and economics, popular culture, philosophy - major writers and genres including the Brontes, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope, Thackeray, Conan Doyle, Ibsen, Shaw, Hopkins, Rossetti and Tennyson - concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism - key critical approaches - a chronology mapping historical events and literary works and further reading including websites and electronic resources.