This report, like its predecessors, relates primarily to the 2nd vol. of The English Novel, 1770–1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction published in the British Isles (2000) and the online The English Novel 1830–1836. The procedure followed derives generally from the activities of the research team who helped produce British Fiction, 1800–1829: A Database of Production, Circulation, and Reception, first made publicly available in 2004, though only materials found in Updates 1–4 are incorporated in that database. The present report comes twenty-three years since the release in March 2000 of the printed Bibliography, and some nineteen years after the original launch of British Fiction 1800–1829 database. Its primary aim is to consolidate all the preceding seven Updates into one final composite statement, while at the same time, in assembling these materials, reference has been made to a number of additional sources, incorporating further new information. Continue reading →
Late in life in in his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851) R. P. Gillies reflected on a career fraught with difficulties owing to debt and other obstacles, though in it earlier stages it might be said to have paralleled in some respects the path of Walter Scott, while reaching a highpoint in the 1820s through Gillies’s significant input as a Germanist into Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. One deep regret as expressed in the Memoirs was his eventual incapacity to piece together his own literary record owing to the loss of materials at significant points in his life. The present article attempts to ameliorate this situation by providing a fuller record than was then available to Gillies himself, through means such as the recovery of rare editions, identification of periodical contributions, and information provided by the archives of the Royal Literary Fund. More particularly it offers an improved account of Gillies’s output as a novelist and translator of fiction, with some newly identified titles being added to the list, while others are removed. Continue reading →
This report, like its predecessors, relates primarily to the second volume of The English Novel, 1770–1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles (Oxford: OUP, 2000) [EN2], co-edited by Peter Garside and Rainer Schöwerling, with the assistance of Christopher Skelton-Foord and Karin Wünsche. It also refers to the online The English Novel, 1830–36: A Bibliographical Survey of Fiction Published in the British Isles [EN3], which effectively serves as a continuation of the printed Bibliography. Continue reading →
Proposals are invited for the 2015 British Association for Romantic Studies international conference which will be held at Cardiff University, Wales (UK) on 16–19 July 2015. The theme of the interdisciplinary conference is Romantic Imprints, … Continue reading →
The list of living poets below is taken from the Poetical Register, and Repository of Fugitive Poetry for 1801, pp. 487–91; the original can be viewed here. The version below is reformatted for the web and annotated … Continue reading →
The House of John Murray was well known as one of the principal British publishers in the field of travel and exploratory literature throughout much of the nineteenth century. The titles that were published under the proprietorship of John Murray II (1778–1843) and John Murray III (1808–92) read like a who’s who of nineteenth-century travel writing. The John Murray Archive offers one of the richest archival sources for publishing history, providing unequalled insight into the way that a prominent London publisher dealt with its authors in the age of colonial expansion. This article examines the processes through which Murray’s works came to make their way from manuscript to publication over several decades. It will conclude with a discussion of authorial self-presentation, examining ways in which some of Murray’s travel writers fashioned themselves, through various discursive strategies, in accordance with their position within this new literary economy. Continue reading →
In this report, I want to float what I consider to be a distinct possibility: that Ann Radcliffe did not cease publication after The Italian (1797), but published two anonymous novels for the circulating library … Continue reading →
With the recent publication of the RCUK revised guidelines on Open Access publication of publicly funded research, set amidst the broader (and often polemical) debates surrounding open access in general, I thought it would be … Continue reading →
Did Ireland experience Romanticism? Certainly not in the uncomplicated way that scholarship assumes England, Germany and other countries did. In Romanticism in National Context (1988), Tom Dunne’s contribution eschews the standard chapter title form—‘Romanticism in … Continue reading →
I James Henderson’s article ‘The Gothic Novel in Wales (1790–1820)’ provides a useful starting point for a study of Wales-related fiction of the romantic period. [1] Examining the extent to which Wales was used as … Continue reading →
This paper examines the turn of the eighteenth century, when the dichotomy between books as products and books as artistic outputs emerged and deals with three different components: novels, circulating libraries, and readers. The aim of the paper is to draw attention to some of the underlying factors that conditioned that split between high and low which came about at this time and also to pinpoint some of the actors that were involved in this process, focused in particular on the works of August Lafontaine and the translation of his works into Swedish. Continue reading →
This essay provides an overview of patterns of reception and production of Irish fiction published between 1800 and 1829, with particular discussion of the fiction of Maria Edgeworth and Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan). The essay is followed by a bibliographical checklist of 114 works of fiction published during the survey period. Continue reading →
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey Published in the British Isles, edd. Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In particular, it offers fresh … Continue reading →
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading →
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading →
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading →
I In 1826, Mary Shelley recalled the Summer of 1814 as ‘incarnate romance’, when ‘a new generation’ of youthful travellers with ‘time and money at command’, yet heedless of ‘dirty packets and wretched inns’, ‘poured, … Continue reading →
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770–1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading →
Let’s begin with an irritated Elizabeth Inchbald. At the bidding of prolific and insistent publisher Thomas Norton Longman, she undertook the task of collecting and critiquing a series of plays spanning the two centuries between … Continue reading →