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Intricate, absorbing study based on research and card collections from around the world tells the story of playing cards and their manufacture, plus provides a fascinating overview of heraldry, geography, history, and the social and political activities of man over the past six centuries. Includes an enormous annotated bibliography of more than 900 items on playing cards and games, and over 1,400 illustrations. Praised by The New York Times as "the most authoritative and complete treatment of its kind."
In this book the author explores the representational strategies of the modern period and their relation to political life through the story of Stanislas Leszczynski, architect king and roi bienfaisant, 'a king that does good'. The ingredients of his story are compelling. They include: an exiled king (who makes a cameo appearance in Voltaire's Candide and corresponds with Rousseau); a collection of writings that include aphorisms, political treatises, and a utopian novel; gardens that include a grotto of eighty-six life-size automata and an experimental village of courtiers; and architecture and landscapes that traverse the contested boundaries of central Europe, imaginary constructions of t...
In The Pattern in the Carpet the award-winning and beloved writer Margaret Drabble explores her own family story alongside the history of her favourite childhood pastime – the jigsaw. The result is an original and moving personal history about remembrance, growing older, the importance of play and the ways in which we make sense of our past by ornamenting our present.
In recent years, Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) has been the subject of increasing interest. A woman, a member of the landholding elite, an educator, and a daughter who lived under the historical shadow of her father, Edgeworth's life is difficult to categorize. Ironically, these very aspects of Edgeworth's identity that once excluded her from literary and historical discussions now form the basis of current interest in her life and her writing. This collection of essays builds on existing scholarship to develop new perspectives about Edgeworth's place in English and Irish history, literary history, and women's history. These essays explore the ways in which Edgeworth's entire adult life was an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, an attempt to justify and preserve her own privileged position even as she acknowledged the tenuousness of that position and as she sought to claim other privileges denied her. Christopher Fauske is the assistant dean in the School of Arts & Science at Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts. Heidi Kaufman is assistant Professor of English at the University of Delaware.
William Dyrness examines how particular theological themes of Reformed Protestants impacted on their surrounding visual culture.
This volume explores illusionism as a much larger phenomenon than optical illusion, magic shows, or special effects, as a vital part of how we perceive, process, and shape the world in which we live. Considering different cultural practices characterized by illusionism, this book suggests a new approach to illusion via media theory. Each of the chapters analyses a specific kind of illusionistic practice and the concept of illusionism it entails in a given context, including philosophy, perception and cognitive theory, performance magic, occultism, optics, physiology, early cinema, cartomancy, spiritualism, architecture, shamanic rituals, and theoretical physics, to show the diversity of shap...
Most of the gamblers of the Old West got their start and reputations by working the circuit of the Mississippi River boats, the railhead cattle towns of Kansas, or the boomtowns that popped up around gold or silver mining. The gunfighter Ben Thompson got his start by running the Bull's Head Saloon with partner Phil Coe in Ellsworth, Kansas. Ben's friend, Bat Masterson, also started his career in the cattle towns of Texas and Kansas. In general, these legendary gamblers were known as "legitimate" or that they played a fair game without cheating. Truth be told, all of them knew the methods employed by the "sharps" to clean the pockets of the other players at the table. They had to know these "...
A detailed interpretive guide to the 16 “face” cards of the tarot that reveals their core identities and special purpose in a person's life. * The first tarot book to focus exclusively on the court cards. * Shows how the “face” cards can clearly and accurately reveal the specific nature of the support-based relationships in one's life. * Includes tarot spreads and potent techniques for contacting these powerful archetypes through meditation and pathworking. The Tarot Court Cards gives fresh meaning to the 16 “face” cards of the tarot--the King, Queen, Knight, and Page. In contrast to the idiosyncratic and confusing interpretations that are presented in many tarot books, Kate Warw...
Zombies, vampires and ghosts feature prominently in nearly all forms of entertainment in the 21st century, including popular fiction, film, comics, television and computer games. But these creatures have been vital to the entertainment industry since the best-seller books of a century and half ago. Monsters don't just invade popular culture, they help sell popular culture. This collection of new essays covers 150 years of enduringly popular Gothic monsters who have shocked and horrified audiences in literature, film and comics. The contributors unearth forgotten monsters and reconsider familiar ones, examining the audience taboos and fears they embody.