820 Reviews the kind of fictional frame familiar in Lucian within which to present his vision of the truth of things. The circumstances surrounding Kepler's reaction, involving his mother's prosecution forwitchcraft, and the history of the interaction between these two luminaries make fascinating reading. The book is intimately concerned with early print culture and its concomitant reading practices. In the final chapter, devoted toMargaret Cavendish, Spiller argues that Cavendish's reading of scientific texts by Hobbes, Descartes, and Hooke made her develop 'an anti-mechanistic and anti-experimental theory of reading in order to challenge the ways that the new science defines reading' (p. 22) from an active form of doing to apassive form of seeing. In reaction, Cavendish in her own scientific writings develops a vitalist theory of reading 'that allows for amore active reader who is able to destroy as well as create knowledge' and attacks what she sees as the "'arts" upon which observational and experimental science depends' (p. 23). In addition to drawing on recent work on early print culture, this book joins debates about large issues in the philosophy and history of science: 'What a historical perspective allows us to remember, that is, is the ways in which fictions have not always been false and scientific laws at least began as fictions' (p. i8o). The historical perspective is thoroughgoing and the book's synthesis of materials from disciplines more usually considered separately, in true Renaissance fashion, is illuminating to novitiates and thought-provoking to those initiates with whom Spiller engages. A cleverly conceived afterword on 'The Sokal Hoax' itself provides an illuminating perspective upon the argument and material of the foregoing chapters, suggesting that the conclusions of this study are not confined to the period covered (I580-I670) but can also resonate in the present. UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING ROBIN SOWERBY The Age of Johnson, vol. xv. Ed. by PAUL J. KORSHIN and JACKLYNCH. New York: AMS. 2004. xvii+493 pp. $144.50. ISBN o-404-62765-x. The fifteenth volume of The Age of Johnson is a handsome, substantial book, impres sively wide-ranging within the terms of its brief, and very expensive. If, however, it is increasingly out of place as a hardback book inwhat is effectively the journal market, the eighteenth-century specialist will find much of interest, and a good deal to admire, for the asking price. This volume is partly devoted to retrospective, from Paul Korshin and Jack Lynch's preface, which pauses to 'reflect on the state of John sonian studies at this milestone' (p. ix), and the landmark studies from the I950S onwards, to generous review essays on the history of The Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, by Robin C. Alston, on eighteenth-century studies anthologies, by Lisa Berglund, which, from a teacher's point of view, is particularly thorough and helpful, and on eighteenth-century travel writing, by David Espey. If some of the reviews that, as usual, conclude the volume seem a little incestuous, with Gloria Sybil Gross's own book on Austen and Johnson up for review while Gross herself reviews Robert Mayer's book of essays on Eighteenth-Century Fiction on Screen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and editor Jack Lynch's book The Age of Eli zabeth in theAge of Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) is also selected for review, thereby suggesting something of a closed circle, nevertheless the bulk of the dozen essays, which are the substance of the volume, are stimulating in their breadth and often challenging in their contentions. A little over half of the essays address topics concerning Johnson and the Johnso nian canon, from Loren Rothschild's detailed and absorbing account of 'The True History' of Reynold's controversial 'Blinking Sam' portrait to, unusuallyand interest ingly, Amiya Bhushan Sharma's 'Samuel Johnson's Image of India', which examines MLR, 101.3, 2oo6 82I both Johnson's relations to those, likeWarren Hastings, who were intimately con cerned in Indian politics and the representation of India and things Indian in his writing. One of themost satisfying, however, isKathleen Nulton Kemmerer's piece, 'Domestic Relations in Samuel Johnson's Life ofMilton', in which she places his treatment ofMilton's...