How does Shakespeare's treatment of human sexuality relate to the sexual conventions and language of his times? Wells draws on historical and anecdotal sources to present an account of sexual behavior in Shakespeare's time, particularly in Stratford-upon-Avon and London. He explores sexuality in the poetry of the period and the ways in which Shakespeare treats sexuality in his plays and relates sexuality to love.

"Eberhard Happel, Baroque German author of an extensive body of work of fiction and nonfiction, has for many years been categorized as a 'courtly-gallant' novelist. In Mediating Culture in the Seventeenth-Century German Novel, author Gerhild Scholz Williams argues that categorizing him thus is to seriously misread him and to miss out on a fascinating perspective on this dynamic period in German history. Happel primarily lived and worked in the vigorous...