For several hundred years, tales of the Snallygaster have terrified the people of Frederick County, Maryland. Described as being half-reptile and half-bird, this winged creature is said to live deep in the caves of South Mountain. Legend has it, this mysterious monster swoops down from the sky and steals children and chickens from unsuspecting farm folk. Some say it's real. Some say it's a myth. But when they see it coming, they all say... "Better run and hide...the Snallygaster's comin' to get ya!
For several hundred years, tales of the Snallygaster have terrified the people of Frederick County, Maryland. Described as being half-reptile and half-bird, this winged creature is said to live deep in the caves of South Mountain. Legend has it, this mysterious monster swoops down from the sky and steals children and chickens from unsuspecting farm folk. Some say it's real. Some say it's a myth. But when they see it coming, they all say... "Better run and hide...the Snallygaster's comin' to get ya!
These parson-naturalists made a significant contribution to the development of British scientific natural history, and played an important role in the foundation of the conservation movement and in the origins of organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the National Trust. This book presents a full range of interesting and sometimes eccentric individuals from the early days of the Christian faith in the British Isles to modern times. Missionary endeavor and service to the Empire brought the influence of the English parson-naturalist to the very ends of the earth. A key to the appreciation of the success of the parson-naturalist phenomenon is understanding the social milieu in which these men worked. Until the twentieth century clergy were members of a relatively tightly-knit social group, often related to one another by kinship or marriage; a man's clerical colleagues were also his scientific colleagues and his kinsfolk.
Benjamin Jesty has been described as ‘the man history forgot’. Spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this book tells the story of the ingenious Dorset farmer who used cowpox as a vaccine to protect his family against the dreaded disease of smallpox in 1774. This happened 22 years before Dr Edward Jenner used a similar process. The origins of vaccination have always been clouded in controversy. Probing previous accounts flawed by myth or subjectivity, this text sets the record straight. Man’s early attempts at stimulating immunity are rooted in folk wisdom of the distant past. Vaccination was not a ‘discovery’ or a ‘medical breakthrough’, but a development from variolation, substituting cowpox as an inoculum instead of smallpox. Analysing relevant primary sources with an innovative approach, this book reveals the geographical extent of awareness of Jesty’s endeavour in Georgian England, confirms his priority, and seeks to establish his Intellectual Property for the first use of an empirical vaccine. Jenner brought vaccination to the world. His achievement will always take precedence, but the findings of this new research suggest it is now time to honour Benjamin Jesty with the credit he deserves.
Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright is an important book which reassesses Shakespeare as a poet and dramatist. Patrick Cheney contests critical preoccupation with Shakespeare as 'a man of the theatre' by recovering his original standing as an early modern author: he is a working dramatist who composes some of the most extraordinary poems in English. The book accounts for this form of authorship by reconstructing the historical preconditions for its emergence, in England as in Europe, including the building of the commercial theatres and the consolidation of the printing press. Cheney traces the literary origin to Shakespeare's favourite author, Ovid, who wrote the Amores and Metamorphoses alongside the tragedy Medea. Cheney also examines Shakespeare's literary relations with his contemporary authors Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe. The book concentrates on Shakespeare's freestanding poems, but makes frequent reference to the plays, and ranges widely through the work of other Renaissance writers.
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