Visual Wonders

Describes all the major developments of maritime, railway, and aviation history. Over 390 full-color, detailed reconstructions and technical cutaways. Includes maps, charts, and other data.

This work expands traditional conceptions of the Enlightenment by examining the roles of wonder and Jesuit missionary conceptions of the Enlightenment by examining the century in a production of knowledge that serves both intellectual and religious functions.

When speaking about the Wonders of the World, we mostly refer to the well-known Seven Wonders. But are there only those? Do wonders only refer to historical structures, or to giant structures that bear testimony to the ultimate capability of Man? Is the Model T Ford not a wonder? Is Mount Rushmore not a wonder? This book contains a compilation of 200 wonders, which not only includes structures, but also incidents, discoveries and works that have changed the way we think or even the way we live. Classified into Classical, Natural, Structural, Architectural, Cultural, and Technological Wonders, this book serves as a holistic guide to the wonders that have inspired us, as also to the wonders that have long gone unnoticed.

Presents an exmination of printed representations of monstrous births in German-speaking Europe from the end of the fifteenth century and through the sixteenth century, beginning with a seminal series of broadsheets from the late 1490s by humanist Sebastian Brant, and including prints by Albrecht Durer and Hans Burgkmair.

Gothic Machine is a ground-breaking exploration of relations between Gothic literature, pre-cinematic media such as magic lanterns, phantasmagoria and dioramas and the first films 1670-1910. Starting with the earliest projections of horror images, continuing through the development of Gothic fiction and drama and closing with the first Frankenstein film, this study is a fascinating and pioneering evaluation of relations between these different media. As early as 1800, the Marquis de Sade identified Gothic novels such as The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho as ‘phantasmagoria’. This work explores the reasons why and, amongst the other mysteries broached en route is the reason that our first view of Dracula on English soil is described by Bram Stoker as a ‘diorama’. That doyen of tales of terror, Sheridan Le Fanu is revealed to be a literary magic lanternist, as is Robert Louis Stevenson. Symbolist visions of spectral automated chanteuses and demonic panoramas are discussed as are the darkest fantasies of J-K Huysmans and the earliest film-makers. This study, which moves between detailed study of the work of specific showmen and artists in relation to media histories and, elsewhere, much wider and more general surveys of cultural expression of these processes, is driven by historicist thought throughout. The author’s argument is audacious and bold, challenging critical orthodoxies on spectrality and the envisioning of ghosts. As the cultural detective who re-discovered the setting of E.G. Robertson’s convent Phantasmagoria, Dr. Jones is in a unique position to explore the performative aspects of this famous spectacle. The author explores five key periods in Germany, Britain, France and America over the designated span. Finally, the widely-ranging discussion crosses the line between pre-cinematic shows and cinema proper revealing how the new technology itself became a haunted, Gothic medium.

The History of Science Fiction traces the origin and development of science fiction from Ancient Greece up to the present day. The author is both an academic literary critic and acclaimed creative writer of the genre. Written in lively, accessible prose it is specifically designed to bridge the worlds of academic criticism and SF fandom.