A History of British Working-Class Literature examines the rich contributions of working-class writers in Great Britain from 1700 to the present. Since the early eighteenth century the phenomenon of working-class writing has been recognised, but almost invariably co-opted in some ultimately distorting manner, whether as examples of 'natural genius'; a Victorian self-improvement ethic; or as an aspect of the heroic workers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century radical culture. The present wo...

Over 100 poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were hugely popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 19th century.

Poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 18th century.

Over 100 poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were hugely popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 19th century.

Over 100 poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were hugely popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 19th century.

Poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 18th century.

Poets of labouring class origin were published in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were popular and important in their day but few are available today. This is a collection of some of those poems from the 18th century.

John Clare (1793–1864) is one of the most sensitive poetic observers of the natural world. Born into a rural labouring family, he felt connected to two communities: his native village and the Romantic and earlier poets who inspired him. The first part of this study of Clare and community shows how Clare absorbed and responded to his reading of a selection of poets including Chatterton, Bloomfield, Gray and Keats, revealing just how serious the process of self-education was to his developme...

In a famous passage in A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf asked 'why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age'. She went on to speculate about an imaginary Judith Shakespeare who might have been destined for a career as illustrious as that of her brother William, except that she had none of his chances. The truth is that many women wrote during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and this collection will serve to introduce modern readers to the full variety of women'...

'Listen, Stranger!' Wordsworth and Coleridge's joint collection of poems has often been singled out as the founding text of English Romanticism. Within this initially unassuming, anonymous volume were many of the poems that came to define their age and which have continued to delight readers ever since, including 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', the 'Lucy' poems, 'Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey', 'A Slumber did my Spirit seal' and many more. Wordsworth's f...

Romantic-Era Irish Women Poets in English offers a representative sampling of the still mostly unknown poetry by Romantic-era Irish women. It represents most of the period’s active poets by multiple (rather than only a few) works, demonstrating the diversity and the subject range of these four dozen or so poets over the 50-year period. Although several of these poets appear (briefly) in Andrew Carpenter’s Verse in English from Eighteenth-Century Ireland, no comparable or competing collecti...

The biography begins with Ramsay's early life in the village of Eve, where he was born into a family of modest means. Smeaton chronicles Ramsay's education, his early poetic endeavors, and his eventual rise to prominence in Edinburgh’s literary circles. Ramsay is noted for his skillful use of the Scots language and for his commitment to capturing the spirit of Scottish culture in his works, such as The Gentle Shepherd, which is celebrated for its pastoral themes and its vivid portrayal of ...