The Nightwalker and the Nocturnal Picaresque

By Matthew Beaumont

The introduction of street lighting to 17th-century London saw an explosion of nocturnal activity in the capital, most of it centring around the selling of sex. Matthew Beaumont explores how some writers, with the intention of condemning these nefarious goings-on, took to the city's streets after dark, and in the process gave birth to a peculiar new literary genre. more

“To Eat This Big Universe as Her Oyster”: Margaret Fuller and the First Major Work of American Feminism

By Randall Fuller

“As a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded” — this is the kind of life envisioned by Margaret Fuller in Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). With an ear attuned to the transcendentalist’s inimitable voice, Randall Fuller revisits the intellectual context, interviews with female prison inmates, and personal longing that informed this landmark feminist work. more