A
SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
BRITISH
ROMANTIC POETRY & PROSE
Dr
Nicholas Halmi
Updated
1 January 2009
General studies
Literary
and intellectual history | Poetic forms
| Women writers | Gothic | Novel | Drama |
Social
and political context | Sister arts |
Reference works
Individual authors
(listed chronologically)
Burke
| Cowper | Barbauld
| Hannah More | Charlotte
Smith | Burney | Godwin
| Blake |
Mary
Robinson | Wollstonecraft
| Helen Maria Williams | Radcliffe
| Edgeworth |
Wordsworth
| Scott | Coleridge
| Lamb | Austen
| Hazlitt | De
Quincey | T.L. Peacock |
Byron
| P.B. Shelley
| Clare | Hemans
| Keats | Mary
Shelley | L.E. Landon
Electronic texts
GENERAL
STUDIES
LITERARY AND
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY:
- M.H.
Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition
(1958), on Romantic literary criticism and poetic theories
- M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism
(1971), on the supposed secularization of Christian concepts and myths in
Romantic culture
- M. H. Abrams, The Correspondent
Breeze: Essays on English Romanticism (1984), includes "Structure
and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric"
- Jonathan Bate,
Shakespeare and the English Romantic Imagination (1986)
- Walter Jackson Bate, The Burden
of the Past and the English Poet (1970), on the response of the English
Romantics to their predecessors, especially Milton
- Ernst Behler, Irony and the
Discourse of Modernity (1990)
- Harold Bloom, The Visionary
Company (1971), readings of the major poems of the "big six" male poets
- Harold Bloom (ed.), Romanticism
and Consciousness (1970), an important collection of essays, including
Bloom's own "The Internalization of Quest Romance"
- Marshall Brown (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 5: Romanticism (2000),
an excellent topically arranged survey of Romantic-era criticism and theory
- Douglas Bush, Mythology and
the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry (1937)
- Marilyn Butler,
Romantics, Rebels, and Reactionaries: English Literature and Its Background,
1760–1830 (1981)
- Paul de Man, Blindness and
Insight (2nd ed., 1983), contains the classic (though deeply flawed)
essay "The Rhetoric of Romanticism"
- Paul de Man, The Rhetoric
of Romanticism (1984), important collection of essays by the leading
deconstructionist critic of Romanticism
- James Engell, The Creative
Imagination: Enlightenment to Romanticism (1981), a learned survey of
concepts of imagination from Hobbes to Coleridge
- Tim Fulford and Peter Kitson (eds.),
Romanticism and Colonialism: Writing and Empire, 1780–1830 (1998),
a collection of essays
- Lillian Furst, The Romantic
Perspective (1969), a comparison of English, French, and German Romanticism
- Steven Goldsmith, Unbuilding
Jerusalem: Apocalypse and Romantic Representation (1993)
- Nicholas Halmi, The Genealogy
of the Romantic Symbol (2007)
- Thomas Keymer and Jon Mee
(eds.), The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740–1830 (2004),
an introductory survey, divided into essays on various topics and
essays on various authors
- Karl Kroeber, Romantic Narrative
Art (1960)
- Jerome McGann, The Romantic
Ideology (1983), an influential New Historicist manifesto
- Jerome McGann, The Poetics
of Sensibility: A Revolution in Poetic Style (1996)
- Anne Mellor, English Romantic
Irony (1980), in part a corrective to Abrams's books
- Michael O'Neill, Romanticism
and the Self-Conscious Poem (1997), a study of Romantic poems in
which poetry itself is a subject of reflection
- Clifford Siskin, The Historicity
of Romantic Discourse (1988), a critique of McGann
- Janet Todd, Sensibility: An
Introduction (1986).
Top
Romantic poetic
forms are surveyed in
- Stuart Curran, Poetic Form
and British Romanticism (1986)
- J.R.de J. Jackson,
Poetry of the Romantic Period (1980)
Women writers
of the period are studied in
Helpful reference works
are
- J.R. de J. Jackson, Romantic
Poetry by Women: A Bibliography, 1770–1835 (1993)
- Janet Todd (ed.), A Dictionary
of British and American Women Writers: 1660–1800 (1984)
For texts
and bibliographies of woman writers not included here, see Adriana
Craciun's Woman
Romantic Writers page and Thomas
Crochunis's and Michael Eberle-Sinatra's British
Women Playwrights around 1800.
Top
The novel
is discussed in
- Nancy Armstrong, Desire and
Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel (1987)
- Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen
and the War of Ideas (1975; revised 1987)
- Pamela Clemit, The Godwinian
Novel (1993)
- Gary Kelly, English Fiction
of the Romantic Period, 1789–1830 (1989)
- Gary Kelly, The English Jacobin
Novel 1780–1805 (1976)
- Anne Mellor, "A Novel of
Their Own: Romantic Women's Fiction, 1790–1830," in The
Columbia History of the British Novel, vol. 19 (1994)
- Nicola Watson, Revolution
and the Form of the British Novel: 1790–1825 (1994)
The Gothic
is examined in
- Fred Botting, Gothic (1995),
an introduction
- Marshall Brown, The Gothic
Text (2005), a major revisionist study, transnational in scope (includes
chapters on Horace Walpole, Immanuel Kant, E.T.A. Hoffmann, William Godwin,
Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, et al.)
- E.J. Clery, The Rise of Supernatural
Fiction, 1762–1800 (1995)
- Juliann Fleenor (ed.), The
Female Gothic (1983)
- Frederick Frank, The First
Gothics: A Critical Guide (1987), a very useful reference work
- George Haggerty, Gothic Fiction/Gothic
Form (1989)
- Jerrold Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Gothic Fiction (2002), a collection of introductory essays
- Coral Ann Howells, Love, Mystery,
and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction (1978)
- Elizabeth MacAndrew, The Gothic
Tradition in Fiction (1979), which focuses on the psychology of evil
- Ronald Paulson, "Gothic Fiction
and the French Revolution," ELH 48 (1981): 532–54,
which situates the Gothic in a political context
- David Punter (ed.), Companion
to the Gothic (2000), a collection of essays by various hands
- David Punter, The Literature
of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present
Day (1980; revised, 2 vols., 1996), a wide-ranging and influential study
- Anne Williams, Art of Darkness:
A Poetics of Gothic (1995)
Top
Romantic-era drama,
particularly by women, has received increased attention in recent years.
Studies include
Top
SOCIAL
AND POLITICAL CONTEXT:
- Marilyn Butler (see above)
- Marilyn Butler (ed.), Burke
Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy (1984), an anthology of
contemporary writings
- Philip Connell, Romanticism,
Economics, and the Question of Culture (2001), a study of the relation
of Romantic literature to political economy
- H.T. Dickinson, British Radicalism
and the French Revolution 1789–1815 (1985)
- William Doyle, The Oxford
History of the French Revolution (1989)
- Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of
Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 (1962)
- Georges Lefebvre, The French
Revolution (2 vols., 1962–64), a classic history
- Paul Magnuson, Reading Public
Romanticism (1998), on Romantic poetry as a contribution to public discourse
- Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld:
Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (1988)
- Donald Low, That Sunny Dome:
A Portrait of Regency Britain (1977)
- Ronald Paulson, Representations
of Revolution, 1789–1820 (1983), on artistic responses to the French
Revolution
- William St. Clair, The Reading
Nation in the Romantic Period (2004), a massive study of publication
practices, based on research in printers' records etc.
- F.M.L. Thompson (ed.), The
Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950 (3
vols., 1990)
- Carl Woodring, Politics in
English Romantic Poetry (1970)
The impact of the Industrial Revolution
on British society is discussed in
- E.P. Thompson, The Making
of the English Working Class (1963)
- Raymond Williams, Culture
and Society, 1780–1950 (1959)
David Miall has compiled a bibliography
of scholarship on travel
and landscape.
Marilyn Gaull's English Romanticism:
The Human Context (1988) is a very handy compendium of information about
the period.
SISTER
ARTS
- John Barrell, The Dark Side
of the Landscape: The Rural Poor in English Painting 1730–1840 (1980),
an influential study of landscape painting
- John Barrell, The Political
Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt (1986)
- David Blaney Brown, Romanticism
(2001), a survery of the fine arts and architecture
- Kenneth Clark, The Romantic
Rebellion (1977), an accessible (if somewhat superficial) guide to Romantic
painting and sculpture
- Matthew Craske, Art in Europe,
1700–1830 (1997)
- Boris Ford (ed.), The Cambridge
Guide to the Arts in Britain: Romantics to Early Victorians (1989; reissued
in paperback under the title The Romantic Age in Britain, 1992),
a brief overview of the fine and applied arts (including painting, architecture,
music, and interior design) in the period
- Hugh Honour, Neoclassicism
(1968; rev. 1977, 1981), and
- Hugh Honour, Romanticism
(1979), two well-informed short studies
- David Irwin, Neoclassicism
(1997)
- Karl Kroeber, British Romantic
Art (1986), relating painting to Romantic literature
- Morton Paley, The Apocalyptic
Sublime (1986)
On architecture specifically
see
- Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture,
1750–1890 (2000)
- Henry-Russell
Hitchcock, Architecture:
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (4th
ed., 1978), part of the Pelican History of Art series.
On music see
- Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century
Music (trans. 1989)
- Carl Dahlhaus, The Idea of
Absolute Music (trans. 1989), on the rise of unaccompanied instrumental
music in the 19th c.
- Herbert Lindenberger, Opera:
The Extravagant Art (1984)
- M. Raeburn and A. Kendall (eds.), The Romantic Era,
vol. 2 of The Heritage of Music (1990), on
Romantic music throughout Europe
- Charles Rosen, The Classical
Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (1977; rev. with CD, 1997), a classic
study, reissued with a CD of Rosen performing examples
- Charles Rosen, The Romantic
Generation (1995, with CD), focusing on Bellini, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and Schubert
- Ian Spink (gen. ed.), Music
in Britain (later title: The Blackwell History of Music in Britain),
vols. 2 (The Eighteenth Century, 1990) and 3 (The Romantic Age,
1800–1914, 1981)
- Richard Taruskin, The Oxford
History of Western Music (2005), vols. 3 (The Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries) and 4 (The Nineteenth Century)
Top
REFERENCE
WORKS:
- Iain McCalman (gen. ed.), An
Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832
(1999), a very thorough and useful guide to persons, events, and contexts
of the period, consisting of 42 essays on major topics and a longer section
of alphabetically arranged encyclopedia entries
- Stuart Curran (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to British Romanticism (1992), a collection of essays
- Frank Jordan (ed.), The English
Romantic Poets (1985), an annotated bibliography of scholarship (up to
1982) on British Romanticism generally and on Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Byron Shelley, and Keats in particular
- Christopher John Murray (ed.),
Encyclopedia
of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850
(2 vols., 2004), articles on persons, works, themes, nations, etc., multidisciplinary
and international in coverage
- Michael O'Neill (ed.), Literature
of the Romantic Period (1998), an annotated bibliography, supplementing
Jordan's on the major poets but also covering novelists, essayists, women
poets, the Gothic, etc.
- Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism:
An Oxford Guide (2005), "includes 46 chapters offering background
and contextual information with detailed readings of Romantic texts"
(publisher's description)
- Duncan Wu (ed.), Romanticism:
A Critical Reader (1995), an anthology of recent criticism
The Wordsworth Circle and
The Keats-Shelley
Journal publish annual review issues devoted to recent books on Romantic
topics; current scholarship is also reviewed in Romanticism
on the Net and Romantic
Circles.
Top
EDMUND BURKE
(1729–97)
EDITIONS:
- Writings and Speeches
(9 vols., 1981–2000), the standard scholarly edition (Philosophical
Enquiry in vol. 1 and the Reflections in vol. 8)
- A Philosophical Enquiry into
the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. J.T. Boulton
(1958; revised paperback, 1987)
- Correspondence (10 vols.,
1958–78)
The Enquiry and Reflections
are also available in good Oxford World's Classics paperback editions.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke (2
vols., 1999–2006), the standard biography
- Carl Cone, Burke
and the Nature
of Politics (2 vols., 1957–64)
- Isaac Kramnick, The Rage of
Edmund Burke (1977), a psychobiography
- M. Freeman, Edmund Burke and
the Critique of Political Radicalism (1980)
- C.B. Macpherson, Burke
(1980), an introduction
- Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication
of the Rights of Men (1790; for editions see below),
an immediate and fierce response to Burke's Reflections
On Burke's prominent place in the
history of the concept of the sublime, see
- Samuel Holt Monk, The Sublime
(1935; pbk. repr. 1960)
- Thomas Weiskel, The Romantic
Sublime (1976)
Top
WILLIAM
COWPER (1731–1800)
EDITIONS:
- The Poems, ed. J. Baird
and C. Ryskamp (3 vols., 1980–95), the standard edition (The Task
appears in vol. 2)
- The Task and Selected Other
Poems, ed. James Sambrook (1994), a good annotated edition, unfortunately
out of print
- Letters and Prose Writings,
ed. J. King and C. Ryskamp (5 vols., 1979–86)
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- James King, William Cowper:
A Biography (1986), the standard biography
- Marshall Brown, Preromanticism
(1991), on consciousness in Cowper's poetry
- W.B. Hutchings, The Poetry
of William Cowper (1983), a critical introduction
- Mary Jacobus, Tradition and
Experiment in Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, 1798 (1976), includes discussion
of Cowper's influence on the "conversation poems"
- Vincent Newey, Cowper's Poetry:
A Critical Study and Reassessment (1982)
- Martin Priestman, Cowper's
Task: Structure and Influence (1983)
- Patricia Meyer Spacks, The
Poetry of Vision: Five Eighteenth-Century Poets (1967)
Top
ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD
(1743–1825)
EDITIONS:
- Poems, ed. W. McCarthy
and E. Kraft (1994)
- Selected Poetry and Prose
(2002), a paperback abridgement by the same editors
There is a hypertext edition of the
Poems
(1773) on the Romantic Circles
site, and numerous individual poems are available on Mary Mark Ockerbloom's
Anna
Barbauld page. Molly Beverstein and Laura Mandell have edited some of the
prose
works online.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Betsy Rodgers, Georgian Chronicle:
Mrs. Barbauld and Her Family (1958)
- Moira Ferguson, Subject to
Others: British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery (1993)
- Anne Janowitz, Women Romantic
Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson (2004)
- William Keach, "A Regency Prophecy
and the End of Anna Barbauld's Career," Studies in Romanticism (1994)
- Marlon Ross, The Contours
of Masculine Desire (1989)
- Marlon Ross, "Configurations of
Feminine Reform," in Revisioning Romanticism (1994), on the politics
of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
Daniel White maintains a bibliography
of Barbauld scholarship.
Top
HANNAH MORE
(1745–1833)
EDITIONS:
Selected Writings,
ed. R. Hole (1996)
Various texts are available
in the anthologies listed above.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Their
Father's Daughter: Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Patriarchal Complicity
(1991)
- Julie Ellison, "The Politics
of Fancy in the Age of Sensibility," in Revisioning Romanticism
(1994)
Top
CHARLOTTE SMITH
(1749–1806)
EDITIONS:
- The Works of Charlotte Smith,
gen. ed. S. Curran (14 vols. to date, 2005-), the new standard edition,
containing all eleven novels and (in vol. 14) the poetry
- Poems,
ed. S. Curran
(1993)
- Selected Poems (2003),
a short paperback edition
- Elegiac Sonnets, 1789
(facsimile reprint, 1992)
- Desmond, ed. A. Blank and
J. Todd (2001)
- Collected Letters,
ed. J. Stanton (2002)
CRITICISM:
- Lorraine Fletcher, Charlotte
Smith: A Critical Biography (1998)
- Stuart Curran, "Women Readers,
Women Writers," in The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism
(1992)
- Carroll Fry, Charlotte Smith
(1996), an introduction
- Jacqueline Labbe, Charlotte
Smith: Romanticism, Poetry and the Culture of Gender (2003), the first
critical monograph on Smith's poetry
- Jacqueline Labbe (ed.), Charlotte
Smith in British Romanticism (forthcoming in July 2008), an important
collection of essays
- Judith Pascoe, "Female Botanists
and the Poetry of Charlotte Smith," in Revisioning Romanticism (1994)
Top
FRANCES (FANNY)
BURNEY (1752–1840)
EDITIONS:
- Complete Plays, ed. S.J.
Cooke and G.M. Sill (1995)
- Early Journals and Letters
(1988)
- Journals and Letters, ed.
Joyce Hemlow et al. (12 vols., 1972–84)
The four novels, Evelina,
Cecilia, Camilla, and The Wanderer are all available as
Oxford World's Classics paperbacks. Evelina is also available in Penguin
(1994), Norton Critical (1997), and Broadview (2000) paperback editions.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Margaret Anne Doody, Frances
Burney: The Life in the Works (1988), a highly regarded biographical and
critical study
- Janice Farrar Thaddeus, Frances
Burney: A Literary Life (2000), a brief biography
- Julia Epstein, The Iron Pen:
Frances Burney and the Politics of Women's Writing (1989)
- Katharine Rogers, Frances Burney:
The World of Female Difficulties (1990)
- Judy Simons, Fanny Burney
(1987)
- Kristina Straub, Divided Fictions:
Fanny Burney and Feminine Strategy (1987)
Top
WILLIAM GODWIN
(1756–1836)
EDITIONS:
- The Collected Novels and Memoirs
of William Godwin, M. Philp (8 vols., 1992)
- The Political and Philosophical
Writingsi, M. Philp (7 vols., 1993)
- Enquiry concerning Political
Justice, ed. F.E.L. Priestley (3 vols., 1946)
- K. Codell Carter has edited an
abridged edition of Political Justice with selections from Godwin's
other political writings (1971)
Caleb Williams and St.
Leon are available in Oxford World's Classics, Caleb Williams and
Fleetwood in Broadview paperback editions. For the Memoir of Mary
Wollstonecraft see below.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- William St. Clair, The Godwins
and the Shelleys (1989)
- Pamela Clemit, The Godwinian
Novel (1993)
- Kenneth Graham, The Politics
of Narrative: Ideology and Social Change in the William Godwin's "Caleb
Williams" (1990)
- Tilottama Rajan, "Wollstonecraft
and Godwin: Reading the Secrets of the Political Novel," Studies in
Romanticism 27 (1988): 221–51
Top
WILLIAM BLAKE
(1757–1827)
EDITIONS:
- Complete Poetry and Prose,
ed. D.V. Erdman (2nd ed. 1982, revised 1988; now also available online),
the most widely used scholarly edition
- William Blake's Writings,
ed. G.E. Bentley Jr. (2 vols., 1978; reissued 2001), a profusely illustrated
edition
- The Complete Poems,
ed. W.H. Stevenson (1971; revised 1989), an annotated edition based on Erdman's
text
- Blake's
Poetry and Designs (Norton Critical Edition, 1979), a convenient classroom
edition
- The
Blake Archive, an illustrated online collection of Blake's works
and a remarkable feat of hypertextual editing
- Complete Graphic Works,
ed. D. Bindman (1978), contains black and white reproductions of the engravings
- Paintings and Drawings,
ed. M. Butlin (2 vols., 1981), contains color reproductions with commentary
- The Illuminated Books
(6 vols., 1991–95; reissued in paperback, 1998), handsome color facsimiles
of the illuminated books, available separately or as a set
- The Complete Illuminated Books,
ed. D. Bindman (2000), a one-volume version of the preceding edition, available
in hardcover and paperback
- William Blake's Commercial
Book Illustrations, ed. R. Essick (1993), Blake's engravings for other
people's books
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- G.E. Bentley Jr., Blake Records
(1969; rev. ed., 2004), a comprehensive documentary record of Blake's life
- Peter Ackroyd, Blake
(1995), a biography
- G.E. Bentley Jr., The Stranger
from Paradise (2001), another biography
- Hazard Adams, William Blake:
A Reading of the Shorter Poems (1963)
- David Bindman, Blake as an
Artist (1977)
- V.A. De Luca, Words of Eternity:
Blake and the Poetics of the Sublime (1991)
- Morris Eaves (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to William Blake (2003), a collection of introductory essays
on various aspects of Blake's work
- Morris Eaves, William Blake's
Theory of Art (1982)
- David Erdman, Blake: Prophet
against Empire (1954; rev. 1977), on the historical and political context
of Blake's poetry
- Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry
(1947; rev. 1969; new ed. with expanded annotation in Frye's Collected
Works, 2004), the classic synthetic presentation of Blake's mythology
- W.J.T. Mitchell, Blake's Composite
Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry (1978)
- Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical
Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies (1982)
- E.P. Thompson, Witness against
the Beast (1993), on Blake's place in the English tradition of political
and religious dissent
- Joseph Viscomi, Blake and
the Idea of the Book (1993)
Top
MARY ROBINSON
(1758–1800)
EDITIONS:
- Selected
Poems,
ed. Judith
Pascoe (2000)
- Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary
Robinson, ed. M.J. Levy (1994)
Numerous poems are also available
on the Web: see the last section of this
bibliography. A collected edition under the general editorship of W. D. Brewer
is forthcoming in 2009–10.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Paula Byrne, Perdita: The
Life of Mary Robinson (2004), the fullest recent biography
- R.D. Bass, The
Green Dragoon:
The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson (1957)
- Marguerite Steen, The Lost
One: A Biography of Mary (Perdita) Robinson (1937)
- Stuart Curran, "Mary Robinson's
Lyrical Tales in Context," in Revisioning Romanticism: British Women Writers,
1776-1837 (1994)
- Anne Janowitz, Women Romantic
Poets: Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson (2004)
- Jerome McGann, "Mary Robinson
and the Myth of Sappho," MLQ 56 (1995)
- Daniel Robinson, "Mary Robinson's
Poetic Reading of Kubla Khan," The Wordsworth Circle (1995)
Top
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
(1759–97)
EDITIONS:
- The Works, ed. J. Todd
and M. Butler (7 vols., 1989)
- Political Writings, ed.
J. Todd (1993)
- A Vindication of the Rights
of Woman: available in Norton Critical (1988), Penguin (1993), and Oxford
World's Classics (2004) paperbacks
- A Vindication of the Rights
of Men [and] A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: published together
in paperback by Cambridge (1995) and Broadview (1997)
- Mary, A Fiction [and] The
Wrongs of Woman (Oxford English Novels, 1976; reissued in Oxford World's
Classics, 1998)
- Mary [and] Maria
(Penguin, 1992), included with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Matilda
- The Collected Letters of
Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. J. Todd (2003)
- A Short Residence in Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark (Penguin, 1987), includes Godwin's Memoir
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- William Godwin,
Memoirs of the Author of the "Vindication of the Rights of Woman"
(1798), a startlingly unvarnished account and the basis of subsequent biographies,
available in a Woodstock facsimile (1993) and a Broadview paperback (2001)
- Eleanor Flexner, Mary Wollstonecraft:
A Biography (1972)
- William St. Clair, The Godwins
and the Shelleys (1989)
- Claire Tomalin, The Life and
Death of Mary Wollstonecraft (1974; revised 1992)
- Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft:
A Revolutionary Life (2000), the most recent biography
- Sandy McMillen Conger, Mary
Wollstonecraft and the Language of Sensibility (1994), on Wollstonecraft's
fiction and its literary context
- Moira Ferguson and Janet Todd,
Mary Wollstonecraft (1984)
- Claudia Johnson (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft (2002), a collection of essays
on various aspects of Wollstonecraft's work
- Jennifer Lorch, Mary Wollstonecraft:
The Making of a Radical Feminist (1990)
- Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady
and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft,
Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (1984)
- Virginia Shapiro, Vindication
of Political Virtue: The Political Theory of Mary Wollstonecraft (1992)
- Barbara Taylor, Mary Wollstonecraft
and the Feminist Imagination (2003), a revisionist study, relating Wollstonecraft
to the radical Enlightenment
Top
HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS
(1761–1827)
EDITIONS:
- Letters Written in France,
1790 (Broadview, 2001)
- An Eye-Witness Account of the
French Revolution, ed. Jack Fruchtman (1997)
Poems
on Various Subjects (1823) is available online. Woodstock Books has
published facsimile editions of Letters Written in France (1989), Poems
1786 (1994), Paul and Virginia (1994)
CRITICISM:
- Mary Favret, Romantic Correspondence:
Women, Politics, and the Fiction of Letters (1993)
- Chris Jones, "Helen Maria Williams
and Radical Sensibility," Prose Studies 12 (1989): 3–24
- Vivien Jones, "Feminity,
Nationalism, and Romanticism: The Politics of Gender in the Revolution Controversy,"
History of European Ideas 16 (1993): 299–305
- Deborah Kennedy, "Storms
of Sorrow: The Poetry of Helen Maria Williams," Lumen 12 (1989):
77–91
Top
ANN RADCLIFFE
(1764–1823)
EDITIONS:
There are Oxford World's
Classics paperback editions of The Italian, The Mysteries of Udolpho,
The Romance of the Forest, and A Sicilian Romance; there are Arno
Press facsimile editions of these novels and of The Castles of Athlin
and Gaston de Blondeville.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Aline Grant, Ann Radcliffe:
A Biography (1951)
- Rictor Norton, Mistress of
Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe (1999), the standard biography
- Marshall Brown, "In Defense
of Cliché: Radcliffe's Landscapes," in The Gothic Text
(2005)
- David Durant, "Ann Radcliffe
and the Conservative Gothic," SEL 22 (1982): 519–30
- Mary Laughlin Fawcett, "Udoplho's
Primal Mystery," SEL 23 (1983): 481–94
- Gary Kelly, "A Constant Vicissitude
of Interesting Passions: Ann Radcliffe's Perplexed Narratives," Ariel
10 (1979): 35–47
- Robert Miles, Ann Radcliffe:
The Great Enchantress (1995)
- Mary Poovey, "Ideology and
The Mysteries of Udolpho," Criticism 21 (1979): 307–30
- Cynthia Griffin Wolff, "The
Radcliffean Gothic Model: A Form for Feminine Sexuality," in The Female
Gothic, ed. Juliann Fleenor (1983)
See also the section
on the Gothic.
Top
MARIA EDGEWORTH
(1768–1849)
EDITIONS:
The Works, gen.
ed.
M. Butler (12 vols., 1999-2003)
Oxford World's Classics
publishes Castle Rackrent, The Absentee, and Belinda; Penguin
publishes Castle Rackrent, The Absentee, and Ormond (with
Belinda and Patronage forthcoming); Everyman publishes Belinda,
Leonora, and Letters for Literary Ladies.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth:
A Literary Biography (1972)
- Tom Dunne, Maria Edgeworth
and the Colonial Mind (1985)
- Catherine Gallagher, "Fictional
Women and Real Estate in Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent," Nineteenth-Century
Contexts 12 (1988): 11–18
- Michael Hurst, Maria Edgeworth
and the Public Scene (1969)
- Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Their
Father's Daughters: Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Patriarchal Complicity
(1991)
- W.J. McCormack, Ascendancy
and Tradition in Anglo-Irish Literary History, 1789–1939 (1989)
Top
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
(1770–1850)
EDITIONS:
- The Poetical Works (5
vols., 1940–49), the old standard edition for everything but The
Prelude
- The Cornell Wordsworth, gen.
ed.
S.M. Parrish (22, 1977–2007), a meticulously
edited (though controversial) series, generally privileging the early versions
of poems
- Lyrical Ballads,
ed. M. Mason (1992), a heavily annotated edition for students (based on
the 1805 text)
- Lyrical
Ballads: An Electronic Scholarly Edition, ed. Bruce Graver and Ron
Tetreault (2003), a remarkable SGML-encoded edition of the 1798, 1800, 1802,
and 1805 editions of Lyrical Ballads, permitting simultaneous comparison
of different versions of the texts
- The Prose Works (3 vols.,
1974), abridged as Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, ed. W.J.B.
Owen (1974)
- The Letters of William and
Dorothy Wordsworth (8 vols., 1967–93), abridged in separate
paperback editions as The Letters of William Wordsworth (1990)
and The Letters of Dorothy Wordsworth (1991)
The 1799, 1805, and 1850 versions
of The Prelude are printed together in a good Norton
Critical Edition (1979). A Norton edition of the Poetry and Prose (including
the 1805 version of The Prelude) is in preparation.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth:
A Life (1989), the standard biography
- Duncan Wu, Wordsworth: An Inner
Life (2002), a biography centered on the unfinished Recluse project
- James Averill, Wordsworth and
the Poetry of Human Suffering (1980)
- Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology:
Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (1991)
- James Chandler, Wordsworth's
Second Nature: A Study of the Poetry and the Politics (1984)
- S.T. Coleridge, Biographia
Literaria (1817; see below for
editions), esp. chaps. 4, 14, 17, and 22
- Stephen Gill (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Wordsworth (2003), a collection of introductory essays on
various aspects of Wordsworth's work
- Geoffrey Hartman, Wordsworth's
Poetry, 1787–1814 (1964), an excellent study of the poet's most
productive period
- Mary Jacobus, Tradition and
Experiment in Wordsworth's "Lyrical Ballads" (1976)
- Kenneth Johnston, Wordsworth
and "The Recluse" (1984)
- Alan Liu, Wordsworth: The Sense
of History (1989), a massive historicist study of the poetry
- Paul Magnuson, Coleridge
and Wordsworth: A Lyrical Dialogue (1988)
- Lucy Newlyn, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
and the Language of Allusion (1986)
- Lucy Newlyn, "Paradise Lost"
and the Romantic Reader (1993)
- Joel Pace and Matthew Scott (eds.), Wordsworth
in American Literary Culture (2004), an important collection of
essays on Wordsworth's American reception
- Nicholas Roe, Wordsworth
and Coleridge: The Radical Years (1988), an account of their political
involvement in the 1790s
- Gene Ruoff, Wordsworth and
Coleridge: The Making of the Major Lyrics, 1802–1804 (1989)
- David Simpson, Wordsworth's
Historical Imagination: The Poetry of Displacement (1987)
- Susan Wolfson, The Questioning
Presence: Wordsworth, Keats, and the Interrogative Mode in Romantic Poetry
(1986)
Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals,
ed. E. de Selincourt (2 vols., 1941), contain valuable biographical information.
There are updated Oxford paperback editions:
- Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth:
The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals,
ed. M. Moorman (1971)
- The Grasmere Journals,
ed. P. Woof (1993)
Top
SIR WALTER SCOTT
(1771–1832)
EDITIONS:
- The Edinburgh Edition of the
Waverley Novels (25 vols. to date, 1993–; titles published thus
far
include The Abbot, The Antiquary, The Bride of Lammermoor,
Castle Dangerous, Guy
Mannering,
The Heart of Mid-Lothian,
Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, Quentin Durward, Redgauntlet,
Rob Roy, and The Tale of Old Mortality),
a new and controversial scholarly edition, based on the first editions
- The Two Drovers and Other
Stories (1987)
- The Journal, ed. W.E.K.
Anderson (1972)
- The Letters, ed. H.J.C.
Grierson (12 vols., 1932–37)
- Selected Poems: one edition
by Thomas Crawford (1972), another by James Reed (1992)
Of the numerous paperback editions
of the novels, those in Oxford World's Classics series (e.g. The Antiquary,
The Bride of Lammermoor, The Heart of Midlothian, Ivanhoe,
Quentin Durward, Redgauntlet, Rob Roy, and Waverley)
tend to be the best edited.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Edgar Johnson, Sir Walter Scott:
The Great Unknown (2 vols., 1970), the fullest scholarly biography
- John Sutherland, The Life
of Sir Walter Scott: A Critical Biography (1995), a revisionist biography
- David Daiches, "Scott's Achievement
as a Novelist," in his Literary Essays (1956), a classic essay
- Ian Duncan, Modern Romance
and Transformations of the Novel (1992)
- Ina Ferris, The Achievement
of Literary Authority: Gender, History, and the Waverley Novels (1991)
- Francis Russell Hart, Scott's
Novels: The Plotting of Historical Survival (1966), a survey of Scott's
entire novelistic output
- Georg Lukács, The Historical
Novel (trans. 1962)
- Jane Millgate, Walter Scott:
The Making of the Novelist (1984)
- Fiona Robertson, Legitimate
Histories: Scott, Gothic, and the Authorities of Fiction (1994)
- Alexander Welsh, The Hero
of the Waverley Novels (1963; 2nd ed., 1992)
See also the general
entry for the novel.
Top
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
(1772–1834)
EDITIONS:
- The Collected Works, gen.
ed. Kathleen Coburn (34 vols., 1969–2002), the complete scholarly edition
of everything except the notebooks and letters; includes the Biographia
Literaria, ed. J. Engell and W.J. Bate (vol. 7, in 2 parts, 1983; also
available separately as a one-volume paperback), and Poetical Works,
ed. J.C.C. Mays (vol. 16, in 6 parts, 2001). Annotated "reading texts"
of the poems are printed in the first two volumes of Mays's edition, which
replaces the old Complete Poetical Works, ed. E.H. Coleridge (2 vols.,
1912).
- Notebooks, ed. Kathleen
Coburn et al. (5 vols. in 10, 1957–2002)
- Collected Letters, ed.
E.L. Griggs (6 vols., 1956–71; reprinted 2001), abridged as Selected
Letters (1987)
- The Major Works, ed. H.J.
Jackson (Oxford World's Classics, 1999)
- Coleridge's
Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition, 2003), containing a large
selection of the poetry (including the 1798 and 1834 versions of the Ancient
Mariner) and prose, with annotations, a selection of secondary criticism,
and reference matter
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Rosemary Ashton, The Life
of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1996)
- Walter Jackson Bate, Coleridge
(1968), an unsurpassed brief biography
- Richard Holmes, Coleridge:
Early Visions (1989) and Coleridge: Darker Reflections (1998),
sympathetic biographies of STC, the former ending and the latter beginning
at 1804
- John Beer, Coleridge's Poetical
Intelligence (1978)
- Paul Hamilton, Coleridge's
Poetics (1983)
- Nigel Leask, The Politics of
Imagination in Coleridge's Critical Thought (1988)
- J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu
(1927; rev. 1930), a classic (though rambling and methodologically dubious)
study of the sources of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan
- Paul Magnuson, Coleridge's
Nightmare Poetry (1974)
- Paul Magnuson, Coleridge and
Wordsworth: A Lyrical Dialogue (1988)
- Thomas McFarland, Coleridge
and the Pantheist Tradition (1969), a learned study of Coleridge's attraction
to and repulsion by pantheism
- Lucy Newlyn (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Coleridge (2002), a collection of introductory essays on
various aspects of Coleridge's work
- Lucy Newlyn, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
and the Language of Allusion (1986)
- Lucy Newlyn, "Paradise Lost"
and the Romantic Reader (1993)
- Morton Paley, Coleridge's
Later Poetry (1996)
- Reeve Parker, Coleridge's
Meditative Art (1975), on the "conversation poems"
- Seamus Perry, Coleridge and
the Uses of Division (1999), a wide-ranging study of Coleridge's
thought with a fine closing chapter on "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
- Nicholas Roe, Wordsworth and
Coleridge: The Radical Years (1988)
- Gene Ruoff, Wordsworth and
Coleridge: The Making of the Major Lyrics, 1802–1804 (1989)
- Karen Swann, "'Christabel': The
Wandering Mother and the Enigma of Form," Studies in Romanticism 23
(1984): 533–53
- René Wellek, A History
of Modern Criticism, vol. 2 (The Romantic Age, 1955), chap.
6, a tough-minded assessment of Coleridge's criticism
- Carl Woodring, Politics in
the Poetry of Coleridge (1961)
An Oxford Handbook to Coleridge with
38 chapters by various contributors is scheduled for publication in 2009.
Top
CHARLES LAMB
(1775–1834)
EDITIONS:
- The Works of Charles and Mary
Lamb, ed. E.V. Lucas (5 vols., 1903)
- Elia and the Last Essays of
Elia, ed. J. Bate (Oxford World's Classics, 1987), a paperback selection
- Selected Prose, ed. A.
Phillips (1985), a Penguin paperback
- Lamb as Critic, ed. R.
Park (1980)
- The Letters of Charles and
Mary Lamb, ed. E.V. Lucas
(3 vols., 1935), still needed for letters from 1817 on
- The Letters of Charles and
Mary Anne Lamb, ed. E.W. Marrs Jr. (3 vols., 1975–78), the standard
edition for letters up to 1817
There are numerous paperback editions
of the Tales from Shakespeare.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Winifried Courtney, Young Charles
Lamb, 1775–1802 (1982)
- E.V. Lucas, The Life of Charles
Lamb (2 vols., 1905), the old standard biography
- William Flesch, "'Friendly
and Judicious' Reading: Affect and Irony in the Works of Charles Lamb,"
Studies in Romanticism 23 (1984): 163–81
- Aaron James, A Double Singleness:
Gender and the Writings of Charles and Mary Lamb (1991)
- George Barnet, Charles Lamb
(1976), an introduction
- Walter Pater, "Charles Lamb,"
in Appreciations (1889), a classic essay
- Claude Prance, A Companion
to Charles Lamb (1983)
- Donald Reiman, "Thematic
Unity in Lamb's Familiar Essays," JEGP 64 (1965): 470–78
Top
JANE AUSTEN
(1775–1817)
EDITIONS:
- The Cambridge Edition of
the Works of Jane Austen, gen. ed. Janet Todd (10 vols., 2005–7),
the successor to Chapman (next entry) as the standard scholarly edition,
each volume also available separately
- The Novels,
ed. R.W. Chapman
(5 vols., 1923; supplemented by the Minor Works, 1954), still available
as a set or separately
- Catharine and Other Writings
(1993; Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1998)
- The Letters, ed. D. Le
Faye (1995)
The novels are available
in paperback in Oxford World's Classics (1990–98; new eds., 2003–4),
new Penguin
(1995–), new Everyman (1991–96), Broadview (1994–2002; rev.
ed.
of Northanger Abbey, 2002), and Norton Critical (1994–2001) editions;
the new Penguins use the texts of the first editions.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- J.E. Austen-Leigh, A Memoir
of Jane Austen (1870; rev. 1871; ed. R.W. Chapman, 1926; Oxford World's
Classics ed., 2002), the first biography, still interesting but to be used
with caution
- John Halperin, The Life of
Jane Austen (1984)
- David Nokes, Jane Austen: A
Life (1997)
- Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen:
A Life (1997)
- Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen
and the War of Ideas (1975), on Austen's conservatism
- Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster
(eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (1997), a collection
of introductory essays
- D.W. Harding, "Regulated
Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen," Scrutiny 8 (1940):
346–62, a classic essay on Austen's irony
- Jocelyn Harris, Jane Austen's
Art of Memory (2003), a study of Austen's use of literary allusion
- Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen:
Women, Politics, and the Novel (1988)
- D.A. Miller, Narrative and
Its Discontents (1981)
- D.A. Miller, Jane Austen,
or the Secret of Style (2005), a meditation on the "absolute, impersonal
authority" of Austen's style
- Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen:
Irony as Defense and Discovery (1952)
- Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady
and the Woman Writer (1984)
- Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
(1993), includes a controversial chapter on Mansfield Park
- Roger Sales, Jane Austen and
Representations of Regency England (1994), on the social context of Austen's
novels
- Tony Tanner, Jane Austen
(1986)
- Janet Todd (ed.), Jane Austen:
New Perspectives (1983), a collection of essays
- Janet Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen (2006),
a biographical and critical introduction, with individual chapters on each
of the novels
- Raymond Williams, The Country
and the City (1973)
- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's
Own (1929; often reprinted), on Austen as the creator of a distinctly
feminine sentence
F.B. Pinion's Jane
Austen Companion (1979) and Paul Poplawski's Jane Austen Encyclopedia
(1998) are useful reference works. See
also the general entry for the novel.
Top
WILLIAM HAZLITT
(1778–1830)
EDITIONS:
- Selected Works, ed. D.
Wu (9 vols., 1998), the new standard edition
- New Writings, ed. D.
Wu (2 vols., 2007), an edition of 205 previously uncollected writings
- Collected Works,
ed. P.P. Howe (21 vols., 1930–34), the old standard edition, still needed
for texts excluded from Wu's edition (index in vol. 21)
- The Letters of William Hazlitt
(1978)
- The Fight and Other Writings,
ed. Tom Paulin and David Chandler (2000), a new selection of 57 of Hazlitt's
essays
Hazlitt's Selected Writings
are available in Penguin and Oxford World's Classics paperbacks.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Herschel Baker, William Hazlitt
(1962), the uninspiring standard biography
- Stanley Jones, Hazlitt: A
Life, from Winterslow to Frith Street (1989), an account of Hazlitt's
life from the age of thirty
- David Bromwich, Hazlitt: The
Mind of a Critic (1983)
- John Kinnaird, William Hazlitt:
Critic of Power (1978)
- John Mahoney, The Logic of
Passion: The Literary Criticism of William Hazlitt (1981)
- Tom Paulin, The Day-Star of
Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style (1998), a vigorous defence of
Hazlitt
- René Wellek, A History
of Modern Criticism, vol. 2 (1955), chap. 7
A biography by Duncan Wu is in preparation.
Top
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
(1785–1859)
EDITIONS:
- Works of Thomas De Quincey,
gen. ed. G. Lindop (21 vols., 2000–3), the new, excellently edited collected
edition, thankfully replacing Masson's (vol. 2 contains the Confessions)
- Collected Writings, ed.
D. Masson (14 vols., 1889–90; repr. 1895–96)
- De Quincey as Critic
(1973), a selection of his criticism
- The Confessions of an English
Opium-Eater and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics, 1985), a good
paperback edition (which includes "The English Mail-Coach")
- On Murder (Oxford
World's Classics, 2006), a selection of De Quincey's writings on crime
and violence
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- H.A. Eaton, Thomas de Quincey
(1936), a reliable older biography
- Grevel Lindop, The Opium-Eater:
A Life of Thomas de Quincey (1981), now the standard biography
- Françoise Moreux, Thomas
de Quincey: La vie, l'homme, l'oeuvre (1964)
- Edmund Baxter, De Quincey's
Art of Autobiography (1990)
- Alethea Hayter, Opium and
the Romantic Imagination (1968)
- V.A. De Luca, Thomas De Quincey:
The Prose of Vision (1980)
- Margaret Russet, De Quincey's
Romanticism (1997)
- Charles Rzepka, Sacramental
Commodities: Gift, Text, and the Sublime in De Quincey (1995)
- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The
Coherence of Gothic Conventions (1980)
Top
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK
(1785–1866)
EDITIONS:
- Works (10 vols., 1924–34;
repr. 1967)
- The Novels, ed. D. Garnett
(1948; repr. in 2 vols., 1963), a convenient one-volume edition
- The Letters, ed. N. Joukovsky
(2 vols., 2001)
Four of the novels are available
in paperback: Nightmare Abbey [and] Crotchet Castle (Penguin), Headlong
Hall [and] Cyril Grange (Oxford World's Classics). The "Four Ages of Poetry"
is available in Romantic Critical Essays, ed. D. Bromwich (1987).
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Jean-Jacques Mayoux, Un épicurien
anglais: Thomas Love Peacock (1932)
- Brian Burns, The Novels of
Thomas Love Peacock (1985)
- Marilyn Butler, Peacock Displayed:
A Satirist in His Context (1979), an insightful comprehensive study
Top
GEORGE GORDON, LORD
BYRON (1788–1824)
EDITIONS:
- Complete Poetical Works,
ed. J.J. McGann and B. Weller (7 vols., 1980–93), carefully edited and
heavily annotated,
though somewhat difficult to use (Childe Harold appears in vol.
2, Manfred in vol. 3, Don Juan in vol. 5)
- Letters and Journals,
ed. L. Marchand (12 vols., 1973–82), immensely entertaining and revealing
- Complete Miscellaneous
Prose, ed. A. Nicholson (1991)
- Byron, ed. J.J. McGann (Oxford
Authors,
1986; reissued in Oxford World's Classics as The Major Works, 2000),
a well-edited selection from the poems and letters
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Leslie Marchand, Byron: A
Biography (3 vols., 1957), the standard biography, abridged in one volume
(and updated) as Byron: A Portrait (1970)
- Caroline Franklin, Byron: A
Literary Life (2002), a brief biography with an emphasis on Byron's literary
career (and one of the few biographies that doesn't neglect his writing)
- Fiona MacCarthy, Byron: Life
and Legend (2002), a recent, rather hostile biography with new archival
findings
and excellent illustrations
- Louis Crompton, Byron and
Greek Love (1985), on Byron's bisexuality in its historical context
- Anne Barton, Byron: Don Juan
(1992), a handy introduction to the poem
- Frederick Beaty, Byron the
Satirist (1985)
- Bernard Blackstone, Byron:
A Survey (1975), an overview of Byron's poetry
- Drummond Bone (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Byron (2004), a collection of essays on various
aspects of Byron's life and work
- Angus Calder, Byron (1987),
a good introduction
- Andrew Elfenbein, Byron and
the Victorians (1995)
- Robert Gleckner, Byron and
the Ruins of Paradise (1967)
- G. Wilson Knight, The Burning
Oracle (1939)
- Nigel Leask, British Romantic
Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (1992)
- Peter Manning, Byron and His
Fictions (1978)
- Jerome McGann, Fiery Dust:
Byron's Poetical Development (1968), a study of the earlier poetry
- Jerome McGann, "Don Juan"
in Context (1976)
- Charles Robinson, Shelley
and Byron (1976), on their personal and literary relations
- Mohammed Sharafuddin, Islam
and Romantic Orientalism (1994), on Byron's representation of the East
- Jane Stabler, Byron, Poetics
and History (2003)
Romantic
Circles hosts a searchable Byron
Chronology.
Top
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792–1822)
EDITIONS:
- Shelley's
Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition, 1977; revised 2001), an
excellent one-volume paperback, with well-edited texts and extracts
of secondary criticism
- The Major Works,
ed. Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill (Oxford, 2003), another excellent
paperback edition, with a slightly larger selection of prose works than
the Norton
- The Complete Poetry, ed.
Donald Reiman and Neil Fraistat (vol. 1, 2000; vol. 2, 2004), a long-awaited
critical edition
(8 vols. projected)
- Poems,
ed. G.M. Matthews and Kelvin Everest (Longman Annotated edition, vol. 1, 1989;
vol. 2, 2000; vol. 3 forthcoming), a well-edited, heavily annotated scholarly
edition
- Prose Works, ed. E.B.
Murray (vol. 1 only, 1993), a promising edition stalled by the editor's death
- The Letters (2 vols.,
1964), still standard but in need of revision
- Shelley and His Circle
(10 vols., 1961–2002; 3 final vols. forthcoming), presenting the numerous
and various documents
in the Pforzheimer Collection of Shelleyana (including poems, letters, and
vegetarian recipes)
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Kenneth Neill Cameron, Young
Shelley: Genesis of a Radical (1950), and Shelley: The Golden Years
(1974), two excellent studies, together covering the whole of Shelley's
life and works and emphasizing his political thought
- Richard Holmes, Shelley: The
Pursuit (1974; reissued 1994), a lively (if not always reliable) biography
- Stuart Curran, Shelley's "Cenci":
Scorpions Ringed with Fire (1970)
- Stuart Curran, Shelley's Annus
Mirabilis: The Maturing of an Epic Vision (1975), a study of the poetry
of 1819–20
- P.M.S. Dawson, The Unacknowledged
Legislator: Shelley and Politics (1990)
- Jerrold Hogle, Shelley's Process:
Radical Transference and the Development of His Major Works (1988)
- T.A. Hoagwood, Skepticism
and Ideology: Shelley's Political Prose and Its Context from Bacon to Marx
(1988)
- William Keach, Shelley's Style
(1984)
- Timothy Morton, Shelley and
the Revolution in Taste (1994), on Shelley's vegetarianism
- Donald Reiman, Percy Bysshe
Shelley (1969; rev. 1990), a good brief introduction
- Stuart Sperry, Shelley's Major
Verse (1988)
- Earl Wasserman, Shelley: A
Critical Reading (1971), a major, comprehensive study of the poetry
- Timothy Webb, Shelley: A Voice
Not Understood (1977), an excellent introductory survey
Romantic
Circles hosts a searchable Shelley
Chronology. MSS are reproduced in two series, both under the editorship
of Donald Reiman: Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics: Shelley (9 vols.,
1985–) and The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts (23 vols., 1986–).
Top
JOHN
CLARE (1793–1864)
EDITIONS:
- The Major Works, ed.
E. Robinson, D. Powell, and T. Paulin (Oxford World's Classics, 2004), the
most comprehensive paperback edition, replacing the out-of-print Oxford
Authors edition (1984)
- "I Am": The Selected Poetry
of John Clare,
ed. J. Bate (2003), another compendious selection
- The Shepherd's Calendar,
ed. E. Robinson (1993)
- Selected Poetry, ed. G.
Summerson (Penguin, 1990)
The standard scholarly
edition has appeared under the general editorship of Eric Robinson: Early
Poems, 1804–1822 (2 vols., 1989), Poems of the Middle Period, 1822–1837
(5 vols., 1996–2003), Later Poems, 1837–1846 (2 vols.,
1984), Natural History Prose Writings (1984), Autobiographical Writings
(1983), and The Letters (1985).
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Jonathan Bate, John Clare:
A Life (2003), the new standard biography
- Edward Storey, A Right to Song:
The Life of John Clare (1982), another biography
- John Barrell, The Idea of Landscape
and the Idea of Place 1730–1840: An Approach to the Poetry of John Clare
(1972), a very influential study
- Timothy Brownlow, John Clare
and the Picturesque Landscape (1983)
- Johanne Clare, John Clare and
the Bounds of Circumstance (1987), on the impact of Clare's social class
upon his work
- George Deacon, John Clare and
the Folk Tradition (1983; new ed., 2002)
- William Howard, John Clare
(1981), an introduction
- James McKusick, "Beyond the
Visionary Company: John Clare's Resistance to Romanticism," in John
Clare in Context, ed. Hugh Haughton and Geoffrey Summerson (1994)
- Raymond Williams, The Country
and the City (1973)
Many important articles
on Clare have been published in the John Clare Society Journal (1982–).
Top
FELICIA HEMANS
(1793–1835)
EDITION:
- Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems,
Letters, Reception Materials, ed. Susan Wolfson (2000) (click here
for Wolfson's essay about the edition in Romanticism on the Net)
- Selected Poems, Prose, and
Letters, ed. G. Kelly (2001)
- Records of Woman, with Other
Poems, ed. Paula Feldman (1999)
Numerous texts are also available
on the Web. The 1828 edition of Records of Woman is available both online
and in a printed facsimile edition (1991).
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Peter Trindler, Mrs. Hemans
(1984)
- Norma Clarke, Ambitious Heights:
Writings, Friendship, and Love (1990)
- Angela Leighton, Victorian
Women Poets (1993)
- Jerome McGann, The Poetics
of Sensibility (1996)
- Jerome McGann, "Literary History,
Romanticism, and Felicia Hemans," in Revisioning Romanticism, ed.
C.S. Wilson and J. Haefner (1994)
- Anne Mellor, Romanticism and
Gender (1993)
- Susan Wolfson, "Domestic Affections
and the Spear of Minerva: Felicia Hemans and the Dilemma of Gender," in Revisioning
Romanticism (1994)
Nanora Sweet has compiled an online
bibliography
of primary and secondary materials relating to Hemans.
Top
JOHN KEATS
(1795–1821)
EDITIONS:
- The Poems of John Keats,
ed. J. Stillinger (1978), the authoritative edition, reissued in paperback
without the critical apparatus as The Complete Poems (1982)
- Keats's Poetry and Prose,
ed. J. Cox (Norton Critical Edition, 2008), newly edited and annotated
texts of a large selection of poems and letters as well as some contemporary
reviews of Keats's poetry
- The Major Works, ed. E.
Cook (Oxford World's Classics, 2000), includes poems and letters
- Selected Poems and Letters,
ed. Douglas Bush (1959), with a useful introduction and good notes
- The Letters of John Keats,
ed. H.E. Rollins (2 vols., 1958), the standard edition, abridged as Selected
Letters, ed. G. Scott (2002)
- The Letters, ed. R.
Gittings (1970), an excellent selection available in paperback
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Walter Jackson Bate, John
Keats (1963), the monumental standard biography (includes lengthy discussions
of the poems)
- Robert Gittings, John Keats
(1968), a reliable biography, supplementing Bates's in details
- Andrew Motion, Keats
(1998), another full-length biography
- Douglas Bush, John Keats:
His Life and Writings (1966), an excellent short biography
- John Barnard, John Keats
(1987), an introduction
- Jeffery Cox, Poetry and Politics
in the Cockney School (1999), on Keats and the Leigh Hunt circle
- Donald Goellnicht, The Poet-Physician:
Keats and Medical Science (1984)
- Ian Jack, Keats and the Mirror
of Art (1967), on Keats's response to the visual arts
- David Perkins, The Quest for
Permanence: The Symbolism of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats (1959)
- Christopher Ricks, Keats and
Embarrassment (1974)
- Nicholas Roe, John Keats and
the Culture of Dissent (1997), emphasizing Keats's educational background
and connections with radical politics
- Jack Stillinger, The Hoodwinking
of Madeline and Other Essays on Keats's Poems (1971)
- Helen Vendler, The Odes of
John Keats (1983), a close reading of the odes and some other poems
- Susan Wolfson (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Keats (2001), a collection of introductory essays on various
aspects of Keats's work
- Susan Wolfson, The Questioning
Presence: Wordsworth, Keats, and the Interrogative Mode in Romantic Poetry
(1986)
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MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY (1797–1851)
EDITIONS:
- Novels and Selected Works,
gen. ed. N. Crook (8 vols., 1996), the most comprehensive edition (Frankenstein
appears in vol. 1, The Last Man in vol. 4)
- Mary Shelley's Literary Lives
and Other Writings,
gen. ed. N. Crook (4 vols., 2002), containing all the writings not included
in the above edition
- Collected Tales and Stories,
ed. C. Robinson (1976; reissued in paperback, 1990)
- The Mary Shelley Reader
(1990)
- Letters, ed. B.T. Bennett
(3 vols., 1980–88)
- Journals, ed. P. Feldman
and D. Scott-Kilvert (2 vols., 1987)
The novels are available in a variety
of good paperback editions, listed here by title and publisher:
- Frankenstein
(1818 version): Oxford (1994), Broadview (1994; revised 1999),
and Chicago (ed. J. Rieger, 1982)
- Frankenstein (1831 version):
Oxford (1969; reissued as a World's Classics paperback, 1980) and Penguin
(1985; revised 1992)
- The Last Man: Oxford
(1994) and Broadview (1996)
- Valperga: Oxford (1997)
and Broadview (1998)
- Lodore (Broadview, 1997)
- Matilda (Penguin, 1992),
included with Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary and Maria; the three
novels are also included in a Pickering Women's Classics edition by J. Todd
(1992)
The
Mortal Immortal is available online. MSS of Frankenstein are
reproduced in Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics: Shelley, vol. 9
(1996).
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Anne Mellor, Mary Shelley:
Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters (1988), an important feminist biographical
and critical study
- William St. Clair, The Godwins
and the Shelleys: The Biography of a Family (1989)
- Miranda Seymour, Mary Shelley
(2000), the most recent biography
- Muriel Spark, Mary Shelley
(1987)
- Emily Sunstein, Mary Shelley:
Romance and Reality (1989)
- Chris Baldick, In Frankenstein's
Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing (1987)
- Jane Blumberg, Mary Shelley's
Early Novels (1993)
- Marshall Brown, "Frankenstein:
A Child's Tale," Novel 36 (2003): 145–75, on
the novel's Gothic plot (a version of this article appears as a chapter
in his book The Gothic Text, 2005)
- Michael Eberle-Sinatra (ed.),
Mary Shelley's Fictions (2000), a collection of recent criticism
- Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century
Literary Imagination (1979)
- Barbara Johnson, "The Last
Man," in The Other Mary Shelley (see below), a brilliant essay
on MWS's third novel
- Barbara Johnson, "My Monster/My
Self," in A World of Difference (1989), on Frankenstein
- George Levine and U.C. Knoepflmacher
(eds.), The Endurance of Frankenstein (1979), an important collection
of essays
- Anne Mellor and Esther Schor (eds.),
The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein (1993), a collection of
essays on MWS's post-Frankenstein writings
- Esther Schor (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Mary Shelley (2003), a collection of introductory essays
- William Veeder, Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein, and Androgyny (1986)
See also the Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley Chronology and Resource Site.
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LETITIA ELIZABETH
LANDON ("L.E.L.," 1802–38)
EDITIONS:
Selected Writings,
ed. J. McGann and D. Riess (1997)
Selections from The
Improvisatrice (1824) and other works are available online,
and her Poetical Works and Tales and Sketches have been reprinted
in facsimile editions (1990 and 1999, respectively). There is an excellent hypertext
edition of LEL's
"Verses" and the Keepsake for 1829
on the Romantic Circles
site.
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:
- Glennis Stephenson, Letitia
Landon: The Woman Behind L.E.L. (1995)
- Germaine Greer, Slip-shod Sibyls:
Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet (1995)
Top
ELECTRONIC TEXTS
Numerous Romantic texts (particularly
shorter poems) are available on the World Wide Web, and most of them can be
downloaded and printed free of charge. One source of texts is the University
of Toronto's Representative
Poetry anthology. Links to other text archives (e.g. Virginia's "British
Poetry, 1780-1910") are provided on the Romanticism page of The
Voice of the Shuttle and on the links
page of Romanticism on the Net. Many works by woman writers of the time
are more easily accessible on the Web than in print, and links to them may be
found on Adriana Craciun's site (see above)
. David Miall's Romanticism: CD-ROM (1997; included since 2000 with
Duncan Wu's Romanticism: An Anthology) contains numerous Romantic texts
as well as illustrated materials relating to the period.
Back
to the top
Bibliography © Nicholas Halmi,
2009