A Chinese Bestiary : Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas

 76 b/w plates, 37 b/w illustrations  A Chinese Bestiary presents a fascinating pageant of mythical creatures from a unique and enduring cosmography written in ancient China.

Secret Science of Masonic Initiation

The Secret Science of Masonic Initiation is different and revelatory. This book will take you on an imaginative journey deep into that inner part of your consciousness that Freemasonry calls your soul. Not since the glory days of Wilmshurst, Ward, and Waite, has any serious Masonic writer attempted to look at the meaning of Masonry in such knowledgeable depth. Its ritual says it is a high and serious subject.

 

 

A comprehensive guide to realism and regionalism in American literature, this engaging volume discusses sectionalism, industrialism, and literary regionalism; slave narratives and race relations; the life and work of Mark Twain; urban writers and internationalism; regionalism; and naturalism, determinism, and social reform. Writers covered include: Horatio Alger, Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Harriet Jacobs, Sarah Orne Jewett, Jack London, Frank Norris, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton, and more.

American literature of the 20th century focuses on a variety of topics, from the violence of war and the struggle for civil rights to the social impact of technology and the moral significance of money. A concise, engaging guide to American contemporary literature, this volume provides information on 20th-century writers; the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond; contemporary American poetry; new voices; and the postmodern movement. Writers covered include: Bob Dylan, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Alfred C. Kinsey, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, and more.

As American literature developed, it was influenced by a number of factors, such as the wilderness, religious beliefs, ideas about morality, and Enlightenment philosophy. Covering the first 300 years of American literature as well as the literature of the Puritans, the American Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and more, this volume discusses the writers and works of the American colonial and revolutionary periods. Writers covered include: Joel Barlow, William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet, Hannah Webster Foster, Olaudah Equiano, Cotton Mather, Thomas Paine, Edward Taylor, and more.