San Antonio College Library

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rake and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. Stanley Kubrick later adapted the novel into the movie...

"Everyone loves a good villain! From the back pages of history, vivid, entertaining portraits of little-known scoundrels whose misdeeds range from the simply inept to the truly horrifying. Even if you're an avid history buff, you've probably never heard of this disreputable cast of characters: A drunken, ne'er-do-well cop who abandoned his post at Ford's Theatre, giving assassin John Wilkes Booth unchallenged access to President Lincoln; a notorious...

Drawing on the writings of Cervantes, Quevedo, and Aleman, this production defines the quintessentially Spanish picaro- his role in society, his relationship to his master and mistress, his reliance on his own wits and his ability to outsmart others, his sense of humor and his alienation.

The first social and cultural history of vagrancy between 1650 and 1750, this book combines sources from across England and the Atlantic world to describe the shifting and desperate experiences of the very poorest and most marginalized of people in early modernity; the outcasts, the wandering destitute, the disabled veteran, the aged labourer, the solitary pregnant woman on the road and those referred to as vagabonds and beggars are all explored in...

Covering the entire period, from the colonial era to the late-20th century, this book charts the history of the homeless in America. Drawing on sources that include records of charitable organizations, sociological studies, and numerous memoirs of formerly homeless persons, Kusmer demonstrates that the homeless have been a significant presence on the American scene for over 200 years. He probes the history of homelessness from a variety of angles,...