Making Waste: Leftovers and the Eighteenth-Century Imagination

"This is a vivaciously written, multidimensional study of the problem and promise that waste posed to the eighteenth-century English imagination. It is surprisingly and commendably concise, given its topic, and it frames economic, political, anthropological, and historical analysis with a very fine literary sensibility--one that actively appreciates the role that imaginative writing played in the negotiation of a paradox that turns out to be constitutive of modern English identity."--Jayne Lewis, University of California, Irvine

"Making Waste is a pleasure to read--vividly, gracefully, wittily written. It will be a valuable contribution to eighteenth-century literary and cultural studies."--Cynthia Wall, University of Virginia