Work on British Romanticism is often characterised as much by its conscious difference from preceding positions as it is by its approach to or choice of material. As a result, writing neglected or marginalised in one account will be restored to prominence in another, as we reconstruct the past as a history of the present. This collection of essays takes as its starting point the wide-ranging work of Marilyn Butler on Romantic literature, and includes contributions by some of the most prominent scholars of Romanticism working today. The essays offer interesting perspectives on Maria Edgeworth, Coleridge, Austen, Scott and others, showing that the openness of modern critical perceptions matches and reflects the diversity of the literature and culture of the Romantic period itself.

This stimulating study considers how Charlotte Brontë's writings engage with a whole range of issues in their time. Through a series of new readings of ostensibly well-known texts, Heather Glen reveals a Charlotte Brontë more alert to her historical moment and far more aesthetically sophisticated than she has usually been taken to be.

Essays by leading scholars explore the lives and tragic early deaths of the three Brontë sisters. They set two of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century :Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights, in the context of the other prose and poetry of the sisters, and trace the reputation of the Brontës through history. A detailed chronology and guides to further reading are included.

‘She was not handsome, she was not rich, she was not even accomplished, yet she was my life’s treasure; I must then be a man of peculiar discernment’

Working as a Professor in M Pelet’s establishment in Brussels, William Crimsworth meets the fascinating Directrice of the neighbouring school, Mlle Zoräide Reuter and, recognizing her as an intellectual equal, becomes powerfully attracted to her. Despite her betrothal to M Pelet, Mlle Reuter will not release her hold over William, and she tries to stand in the way of his finding love elsewhere. But new possibilities open up to him and he is not to be so easily deterred. Published two years after the author’s death, The Professor draws on Charlotte Brontë’s own professional and personal experiences as a teacher in Brussels. Like Jane Eyre and Villette it is the intimate first-person account of a life that brings extremes of despair and joy.

In her introduction, Heather Glen examines the character of William in the context of love of wealth and the importance of moral and social propriety, and considers him as the model of a self-made man.

In this groundbreaking work of revisionary literary history, Marilyn Butler traces the imagining of alternative versions of the nation in eighteenth-century Britain, both in the works of a series of well-known poets (Akenside, Thomson, Gray, Collins, Chatterton, Macpherson, Blake) and in the differing accounts of the national culture offered by eighteenth-century antiquarians and literary historians. She charts the beginnings in eighteenth-century Britain of what is now called cultural history, exploring how and why it developed, and the issues at stake. Her interest is not simply in a succession of great writers, but in the politics of a wider culture, in which writers, scholars, publishers, editors, booksellers, readers all play their parts. For more than thirty years, Marilyn Butler was a towering presence in eighteenth-century and romantic studies, and this major work is published for the first time.

Work on British Romanticism is often characterised as much by its conscious difference from preceding positions as it is by its approach to or choice of material. As a result, writing neglected or marginalised in one account will be restored to prominence in another, as we reconstruct the past as a history of the present. This collection of essays takes as its starting point the wide-ranging work of Marilyn Butler on Romantic literature, and includes contributions by some of the most prominent scholars of Romanticism working today. The essays offer interesting perspectives on Maria Edgeworth, Coleridge, Austen, Scott and others, showing that the openness of modern critical perceptions matches and reflects the diversity of the literature and culture of the Romantic period itself.

This stimulating study of Charlotte Bronte's novels draws on extensive original research in a range of early Victorian writings, on subjects ranging from women's day-dreaming to sanitary reform, from the Great Exhibition to early Victorian religious thought. It is not, however, merely a study of context. Through a close consideration of the ways in which Bronte's novels engage with the thinking of their time, it offers a powerful argument for the 'literary' as a distinctive mode of intelligence, and reveals a Charlotte Bronte more alert to her historical moment and far more aesthetically sophisticated than she has usually been taken to be. The study will be of interest not only to students of Victorian literature and society, but also to those literary critics and theorists who are beginning to reconsider the nature of the aesthetic and its relation to ideology.

Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience and Wordsworth's contributions to Lyrical Ballads were both published in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The similarities between the two collections have often been noticed. However, as Dr Glen argues, to assimilate both collections to a common 'Romanticism' is to obscure that which is most distinctive in each. Each was shaped by and responsive to very different social and cultural pressures in the England of its time and offers a very different vision of human possibility. Moreover each poet uses the language which is the intimate register and vehicle of his society's experience in a very different way. This is a challenging and persuasive interpretation of poems too often seen as part of a coherent and accepted literary tradition: poems which present a continuing challenge to all who would explore possibilities for creative social change. It will be of great interest to all serious readers of Romantic poetry.

Essays by leading scholars explore the lives and tragic early deaths of the three Brontë sisters. They set two of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century :Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights, in the context of the other prose and poetry of the sisters, and trace the reputation of the Brontës through history. A detailed chronology and guides to further reading are included.

'I see her now - cousin Phillis. The westering sun shone full upon her, and made a slanting stream of light into the room within.' Elizabeth Gaskell has long been one of the most popular of Victorian novelists, yet in her lifetime her shorter fictions were equally well loved, and they are among the most accomplished examples of the genre. The novella-length Cousin Phillis is a lyrical depiction of a vanishing way of life and a girl's disappointment in love: deceptively simple, its undercurrent of feeling leaves an indelible impression. The other five stories in this selection were all written during the 1850s for Dickens's periodical Household Words. They range from a quietly original tale of urban poverty and a fallen woman in 'Lizzie Leigh' to an historical tale of a great family in 'Morton Hall'; echoes of the French Revolution, the bleakness of winter in Westmorland, and a tragic secret are brought vividly to life. Heather Glen reflects on the stories' original periodical publication and on the nineteenth-century development of the short story in her Introduction to these immensely readable and sophisticated tales. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.