With issue twenty-four of 1650–1850, this annual enters its second quarter-century with a new publisher, a new look, a new editorial board, and a new commitment to intellectual and artistic exploration. As the diversely inventive essays in this first issue from the Bucknell University Press demonstrate, the energy and open-mindedness that made 1650–1850 a success continue to intensify. This first Bucknell issue includes a special feature that explores the use of sacred space in what was once incautiously called “the age of reason.” A suite of book reviews renews the 1650–1850 legacy of full-length and unbridled evaluation of the best in contemporary Enlightenment scholarship. These lively and informative reviews celebrate the many years that book review editor Baerbel Czennia has served 1650–1850 and also make for an able handoff to Samara Anne Cahill of Nanyang Technological University, who will edit the book review section beginning with our next volume. Most important of all, this issue serves as an invitation to scholars to offer their most creative and thoughtful work for consideration for publication in 1650–1850.

About the annual journal 1650-1850

1650-1850 publishes essays and reviews from and about a wide range of academic disciplines—literature (both in English and other languages), philosophy, art history, history, religion, and science. Interdisciplinary in scope and approach, 1650-1850 emphasizes aesthetic manifestations and applications of ideas, and encourages studies that move between the arts and the sciences—between the “hard” and the “humane” disciplines. The editors encourage proposals for “special features” that bring together five to seven essays on focused themes within its historical range, from the Interregnum to the end of the first generation of Romantic writers. While also being open to more specialized or particular studies that match up with the general themes and goals of the journal, 1650-1850 is in the first instance a journal about the artful presentation of ideas that welcomes good writing from its contributors.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Kevin L. Cope is a professor of English at Louisiana State University. He is the founder and editor of 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, the co-general editor of ECCB: The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, and the author or editor of dozens of books and articles.

"Scholarly communities, especially those joined in eighteenth-century studies, can raise a shout (or glass) over the prospect of the annual 1650-1850’s future publication by Bucknell University Press. This will provide us with regular publication and broader distribution of the journal Kevin Cope has so impressively edited for over 20 years. With contributions from around the world, 1650-1850 has long been providing essays focused on fields as diverse as art and philosophy and others truly inter-disciplinary. It has carried many special issues on topics like 'Death and Dying in the Early Modern Era.' It has also distinguished itself by including lengthy essays and reviews. While 1650-1850 has always been an important annual for seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century studies, its temporal focus is all the more valuable now that so much exciting research is being produced."

"For more than two decades, 1650-1850 has offered its readers an inspiring example of what a scholarly annual concentrating on interdisciplinary and international topics can be. The work of seasoned scholars appears alongside that of 'mid-career' scholars and newly-minted PhDs, creating a heady variety of approaches and subject matter in every volume.  The articles, the reviews, the 'special features,' and even the occasional 'Editor’s Choice' on underappreciated books always advance knowledge in large and small ways. Equally important, each contribution is typically written with verve and allusive pluckiness. There has never been anything doctrinaire about 1650-1850, other than an energy to display compelling new work to its best advantage. That Bucknell University Press has committed itself to this exciting annual is a cause for celebration." 

“A good read and an intellectually responsible read, a worthwhile component of our literary public sphere that deserves our wellwishes.”