Congratulations to Hugh Ormsby-Lennon, associate professor of English at Villanova, whose book
Hey Presto!: Swift and the Quacks has been selected by
Choice magazine as a 2012 Outstanding Academic Title in the “Humanities, English and American” category. Its selection of
Hey Presto! comes as no surprise as, in its May 2012 issue,
Choice ranked the book as “Highly Recommended.” Its review said, “the book's sheer contextualizing detail makes it an invaluable, sustaining resource for future Swift scholarship.”
Prof. Ormsby-Lennon has published widely in the field of 18th-century studies.
Hey Presto! reveals how writer Jonathan Swift’s imagination was galvanized by ancient and modern medicine shows. In early modern medicine shows, quack doctors sold their fake treatments with charismatic presentations involving troupes of performers. Ormsby-Lennon explores how these spectacles inspired Swift’s wittiest satiric voices, especially in his
A Tale of a Tub.
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| Prof. Ormsby-Lennon in Florence |
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