{"product_id":"artifacts-9781421436494","title":"Artifacts","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA literary history of the old, broken, rusty, dusty, and moldy stuff that people dug up in England during the long eighteenth century.   In the eighteenth century, antiquarieswary of the biases of philosophers, scientists, politicians, and historiansused old objects to establish what they claimed was a true account of history. But just what could these small, fragmentary, frequently unidentifiable things, whose origins were unknown and whose worth or meaning was not self-evident, tell people about the past?In Artifacts, Crystal B. Lake unearths the four kinds of old objects that were most frequently found and cataloged in Enlightenment-era England: coins, manuscripts, weapons, and grave goods. Following these prized objects as they made their way into popular culture, Lake develops new interpretations of works by Joseph Addison, John Dryden, Horace Walpole, Jonathan Swift, Tobias Smollett, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, among others. Rereading these authors with the artifact in \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile this review singles out only a few, \u003cb\u003eLake's\u003c\/b\u003e examination of the narratives generated by many eighteenth-century first responders to coins, weapons, manuscripts and grave goods, is thorough and illuminating, as are her detailed and scholarly readings of literary texts where artifacts shape form and content.\u003cbr\u003e—Frances Singh, Hostos Community College, CUNY (emerita), \u003ci\u003eEighteenth-Century Intelligencer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[A] engaging and thought-provoking study.\u003cbr\u003e—Kate Smith, University of Birmingham, \u003ci\u003eJournal of British Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e..., the book is a powerful reminder of the nuances that paying more attention to objects can bring to the study of the intersections between literature and politics in the long eighteenth century.\u003cbr\u003e—Giacomo Savani, University College Dublin, \u003ci\u003eModern Philology\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations \u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003ePrologue. Things Speaking for Themselves\u003cbr\u003ePart I. Terms and Contexts\u003cbr\u003eChapter 1. Leaving Room to Guess \u003cbr\u003eChapter 2. Ten Thousand Gimcracks\u003cbr\u003ePart II. Case Studies\u003cbr\u003eChapter 3. Coins: The Most Vocal Monuments \u003cbr\u003eChapter 4. Manuscripts: Burnt to a Crust \u003cbr\u003eChapter 5. Weapons: A Wilderness of Arms \u003cbr\u003eChapter 6. Grave Goods: The Kings' Four Bodies\u003cbr\u003eAfterword. The Artifactual Form\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eWorks Cited\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49529536807255,"sku":"9781421436494","price":76.47,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781421436494.jpg?v=1731876004","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/artifacts-9781421436494","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}