title: Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (New Studies in European History)
author:  Craig Koslofsky 
description: "Koslofsky's epic history of the night reveals a revolution: how stage lights remade theater, how Lutheran mystics penetrated the night, how witch hunters fought the devil on his own nocturnal turf, how racism mirrored the presumed iniquity of blackness, and how street lights pacified cities. Readers will find surprises on every page." <br />Edward Muir, Northwestern University<br /><br />"Koslofsky plays skilfully with the oppositions of light and darkness, day and night, to reveal dramatic changes in both the social and the symbolic worlds of early modern Europeans. This is a sensitive and throught-proviling synoptic study, of very great interest for all students of European society, thought, and culture." <br />Robin Briggs, University of Oxford<br /><br />"Evening's Empire is a remarkable foray into a long-neglected dimension of early modern history: Europe's conquest of darkness and nighttime. Craig Koslofsky convincingly proves that the transition to modernity and the emergence of the public sphere cannot be fully understood without taking the 'colonization' of night into account. An enlightening study, in every way." <br />Carlos M. N. Eire, Yale University<br /><br />"This is a tremendous read, full of human stories and suggestive argument. Like many of the best history books it makes one pause for thought not only about the past but about the present too." <br />BBC History Review<br /><br />"... [a] consistently stimulating, cogently argued and elegantly written book." <br />Times Literary Supplement<br /><br />"Koslofsky has mined rich and varied sources - letters, diaries, municipal archives, art, periodicals - from France, Britain, and especially Germany, to produce this engaging and inventive work. He possesses an acute historical understanding - which means that he's ever sensitive to the foreignness of the past." <br />Ben Schwarz, The Atlantic<br /><br />"... a triumph of detailed, patient scholarship, clearly and enthusiastically communicated. It imparts considerable subtlety of texture to the fresco of the pre-industrial night so vividly painted by Ekirch in particular. Consequently, it should remain authoritative for decades to come, influencing scholars of literature as well as history." <br />H-France<br /><br />"This is a sweeping book, and its arguments work best in broad, evocative strokes. Much of the revolution here boils down to discrete changes in elite thought or fashion that then helped to reshape broader culture. Koslofsky is to be commended for stressing the limitations, ambiguities, and sometimes outright dichotomies of such developments, even as he argues for their extraordinary impact." <br />Michael D. Bailey, Renaissance Quarterly<br /><br />"... learned and imaginative ..." <br />Keith Thomas, Common Knowledge<br /><br />"... this ambitious book is a remarkable achievement, illuminating early modern European history from a new and original perspective ..." <br />Central European History
zlib_text: ] 
  The Mysterious Stranger
  A Romance
   By
  Mark Twain
     
   
  With Illustrations By
  N. C. Wyeth
   
  Harper & Brothers Publishers
   
  New York
   
  1916
   
  Illustrations
    *Eseldorf Was a Paradise for Us
  Boys………………………………..Frontispiece
   *The Lightning Blazed Out Flash Upon Flash and Set the Castle on
  Fire…..Facing p. 20
   *On the Fourth Day Comes the Astrologer from His Crumbling Old
  Tower……” 38
   *Marget Was Cheerful By Help of Wilhelm
  Meidling……………………..” 60
   *The Astrologer Emptied the Whole of the Bowl into the
  Bottle………….” 74
   *There Was a Sound of Tramping Outside and the Crowd Came Solemnly
  In…..” 108
   *“Life Itself Is Only a Vision, a
  Dream”…………………………….” 148
     ––––––––––––––––––––––––
   
  Chapter 1
   
  Chapter 1
   
  IT WAS IN 1590 — winter. Austria was far away from the world, and
  asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so
  forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that
  by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in
  Aust