Lane ignored Perrault in favor of repeatedly publishing and repurposing his rival seventeenth-century French conteuses, most notably Mme D’Aulnoy. While addressing many of the same domestic and political issues as Minerva Terror Fiction and Minerva Historicals, these contes de fée unsentimentally performed their promise, “Whatever you wish you shall have,” while warning readers to be careful what they wished for. The second section considers novel Minerva fictions that preempted nineteenth-century realism by infusing magical fairy-tale materials into novels conducted in the real world.

Looking broadly at the place of Scripture in the Byzantine Church, this chapter focuses on the place and symbolism of the Gospel reading in the Divine Liturgy. The reader is provided with an overview of the various manuscripts used in the liturgical rite and the Biblical readings deployed therein, as well as an outline of the rites in the Divine Liturgy that surround the recitation of the Gospel. Using as a case study the Christmas Day reading found in an illustrated lectionary, now at the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 1156), the chapter walks the reader through the variety of evidence preserved in Byzantine Gospel lectionaries for understanding the performance of the liturgy, the chanting of the Gospel text and the artistic and scribal practices of the manuscript tradition. Through this chapter, readers will gain a better understanding of how the Gospel was recited in the Byzantine Church, while also acquiring a sense of the various primary and secondary sources for undertaking further research in this area of study.

Chapter 15 examines Brazil’s military dictatorship period (1964–85) through three key novels: Mariluce Moura’s 1982 Revolta das vísceras, Fernando Bonassi’s 2003 Prova contrária, and Bernardo Kucinski’s 2011 K.: relato de uma busca. It places these works alongside three important legal milestones that shaped Brazil’s reckoning with its past: the 1979 Amnesty Law, the 1995 Law of the Disappeared, and the 2012 creation of the National Truth Commission. More than just literary contributions, these novels engage deeply with the politics of memory prevalent when they were written. Together, they reveal both ongoing themes and sharp breaks in how Brazilian novels have responded to the dictatorship across five decades. A common thread is their focus on women involved with the revolutionary Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s, each grappling in her own way with the long-lasting trauma of political disappearances.

Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir (r. 1658–1707) was the last of the so-called great Mughal emperors. He remains a controversial historical figure, castigated for religious intolerance and placed at the centre of a narrative of Mughal decline by some, but considered a great Muslim hero by others. In this richly researched exploration of Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir’s life and times, Munis D. Faruqui contests such simplistic understandings to unearth a more nuanced picture of the emperor and his reign. Drawing on a large and varied archive, Faruqui provides new insights into the emperor’s rise to power, his administrative and religious policies, and the role of the imperial eunuchate and harem. By unpicking the complex dynamics of a long reign, from Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir’s accession to the last weeks of his life and his eighteenth-century memorialisation, this remarkable new history cuts through the many myths that have obscured the extraordinary life story of Emperor Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir.

This chapter examines the role of Greek philosophy in forming the worldview of the Byzantine Church. It begins with the fundamental identification of God as the Good (in the Platonic sense of the Form of the Good) found in the Cappadocian Fathers. This identification provides the basis for a number of characteristic themes in Byzantine theology, including the primacy of the experience of God over theoretical inquiry; the need for poetic imagery in describing God; the naturalness of virtue; and the active role of God within human choice. The chapter also examines a further important Platonic theme, the understanding of the Divine Liturgy as a form of participation in heavenly worship. It ends by noting a number of ways in which Greek philosophy factored into later developments, including the rise of ‘Byzantine scholasticism’ based on Aristotle and the Neoplatonism of Michael Psellos and his followers.

This chapter focuses on the development of Prince Aurangzeb’s princely harem and his evolving relationship, as emperor, with the imperial harem. In evaluating the former, attention is paid to his marriages, rivalries between his wives, and the ways his harem was buffeted by his shifting political fortunes. Post-accession, the focus shifts to Alamgir’s negotiations and relations with the imperial harem, his dependence on his sisters, the harem’s role in safeguarding the continuity of the dynasty and in healing old political wounds, the rise of dissent within the harem in the late 1670s and early 1680s, and the remarkable career of ‘Alamgir’s daughter Zinat al-Nisa. The final section looks at an extraordinary brief period in Mughal history when the imperial harem, for the only time in its history, was split, with one section in the Deccan with ‘Alamgir and the other in Shahjahanabad/Delhi, where it anchored imperial authority in the city, contributed to a lively cultural scene, and acted as a beacon for a possible return of the imperial court to northern India once ‘Alamgir had passed away.

Chapter 20 focuses on Lima Barreto’s 1915 masterpiece, Triste fim de Policarpo Quaresma. The novel pits the ethical ideal of Policarpo Quaresma against the widespread corruption of Brazilian society under the First Republic. It suggests that individuals tend to act with more integrity when alone than when part of a group. The story reaches a dead end when Quaresma, with his naive idealism, tries to apply his values within society. His “sad end” raises key questions about the tension between personal ethics and collective action – questions that reveal Lima Barreto’s conservative perspectives, as the chapter demonstrates. This chapter deepens the conversation on ethics and praxis by interpreting the novel through the lens of ancient Stoicism contrasted with modern Marxism. The result is an ironic effect: Lima Barreto hopes to inspire social change through literature, yet his literary hero fails to bring that change to life.

This chapter will trace the importance of charity and almsgiving as an inherited component of Christianity in general, as a particular duty of care in Byzantine society, and as an expression and physical manifestation of the theology of Byzantine Christianity. After a brief introduction to the cultural origins and scriptural roots of charity and almsgiving, this chapter will explore the theological rationale of charity and almsgiving specific to expressions of Byzantine Christianity and will identify select charitable institutions and significant almsgivers.

This chapter analyzes the classification of “Gulf literature,” arguing that this geographical categorization inaccurately limits the diverse cultural and global contexts found in novels by authors from the Gulf countries. It posits that such a demarcation fragments Arabic literature and often perpetuates Orientalist clichés. Using Mohammed Hasan Alwan’s Ibn Arabi‟s Small Death as a case study, the chapter points to the ways in which the novel transcends regional boundaries through its engagement with Sufism and universal philosophical questions, displacing a narrow Saudi Arabian identity. It challenges the tendency to reduce Gulf literature to sociocultural or nationalist critiques, advocating for a comparative reading approach that recognizes its sophisticated artistic and intellectual contributions and its ability to destabilize conventional literary classifications.

This epilogue discusses the significance of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804; the reconciliation of John Adams and Charles Holt; and consideration of the book themes in the context of today.