Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 is a quarterly journal of historical and critical studies.
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 is a quarterly journal of historical and critical studies, published for Rice University by Johns Hopkins University Press. Each issue is devoted to one of four fields, and includes an article reviewing books recently published in that field:
Winter: English Renaissance
Spring: Tudor and Stuart Drama
Summer: Restoration and Eighteenth Century
Autumn: Nineteenth Century
The journal is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
In our latest issue (64.2), Lee analyzes how the market disrupts the domestic space in Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Lee argues that “the play ultimately affirms the vital role that women collectively play in preserving social unity and harmony through routines and rituals" Read now on Project MUSE! https://buff.ly/18I9vyM
06/11/2026
🪻SEL is entering our lavender era! SEL is pleased to announce the release of our Spring 2026 issue (64.2) featuring our inaugural installment of SEL: The Roundtable. Read now on Project MUSE and stay tuned for more updates on contents and contributors. https://buff.ly/YEO1wkg
05/13/2026
SEL's spring issue (64.2) is set to release later this month. We are excited to share a teaser of the cover image ahead of the issue's release. Leave your guesses on the cover image in the comments! *Hint* Our cover is bringing floral fashion for the summer weather!
05/05/2026
For SEL's 65th anniversary, two undergraduate students conducted research in the SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 papers at the Woodson Research Center as part of the Fondren Fellows program. Our Fondren Fellows created exciting physical exhibits and wrote essays which will be featured on our partner publication, Marginalia. Check out the first essay by Jenna Perrone now https://buff.ly/Hmy2eGU
04/30/2026
167 years ago Dickens published the first issue of his literary magazine, All the Year Round featuring the of his classic text A Tale of Two Cities. Celebrate this with Tarr's exploration of the "registering age" as seen through A Tale of Two Cities. Find the full article in SEL's 61.4 issue! https://buff.ly/sUgZJLk
Image Citation: Dickens Giving the Last Reading of His Works. n.d. Wellcome Collection. https://buff.ly/sVHcNbP.
04/28/2026
Calling all Macbeth fans! Codiamat reviews Macbeth Before Shakespeare which Codiamat describes as "[guiding] the reader through understanding the aspects of what we understand about the man Macbeth, as opposed to the literary character." Check out the full review now! https://buff.ly/4vZCipd
04/23/2026
In SEL's latest issue, Thierauf argues that infamous demographer Thomas Malthus influenced four works of speculative fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, and Filippo-Tommaso Marinetti’s Mafarka the Futurist. Read the full article on Project MUSE https://buff.ly/8U9vWva
04/21/2026
In SEL's 64.1, Zigarovich examines eighteenth-century medical treatises to understand how intersex people were understood and how their bodies were categorized. Zigarovich traces “damaging, eugenically driven biomedical histories and narratives in order to manifest a stronger and more expansive vision of intersex and trans productive and flourishing health and well-being.” Read now on Project MUSE https://buff.ly/SEqFVHj
Image Citation: Von Holst, Theodor, Victor Frankenstein Observing the First Stirrings of His Creature. 1831. Wellcome Collection. https://buff.ly/N9HaCih.
04/16/2026
In SEL's 64.1, Delucia reads antiabortion feminists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to understand and examine their uncritical adoption of Wollstonecraft’s words into their modern contexts. Find the full article on Project MUSE https://buff.ly/sqfaAOb
04/14/2026
In SEL's latest issue, Peh places q***r antisociality and disability studies’ “crip time” together in order to understand “the ruining effects of reproduction” in Hutchinson’s poetry. Read the article now on Project MUSE. https://buff.ly/uzUyxWm
Image Citation: Mater Dolorosa (Mourning Mother), 1776. George Romney The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1970.338
