Write My Name

Justin Tonra is Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland Galway. His research interests are in the fields of digital humanities, book history, textual studies and bibliography, and at the intersections of literature and technology. He has previously held positions at University College London and the University of Virginia.

"A groundbreaking contribution to literary studies, Write My Name elegantly combines textual analysis, book history, publication history and digital methods. In this engaging and insightful study, Tonra deepens and expands not only our knowledge of the Romantic poet-author Thomas Moore but also our understanding of authorship itself." Margaret Kelleher, Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, University College Dublin"What has been called ‘the Central Self’ organizes nearly all studies of Romantic authorship. The Thomas Moore we meet in this book shows how limited that view of Romantic writing and writers can be. Advancing a ‘model of opposition’ to that model, Tonra’s argument carries conviction because his book is itself a scholarly model for how to investigate the complex forcefield in which all literary works live and move and have their being." Jerome McGann, University of Virginia"A dazzling study of the work of Thomas Moore, more than meeting the considerable challenges laid down by this most stylish of authors while also raising new questions for the field at large." Claire Connolly, Professor of Modern English, University College Cork"Justin Tonra's book asks us not just to look at the career of Thomas Moore again but also to view an entirely new Romantic-era author. Write my Name is about 'Thomas Moore' but also about the many fugitive personae that emanated from him, pseudonymous - Thomas Little, Thomas Brown, Anacreon, Feramorz, narrator of Lalla Rookh, even 'Tom Moore' - and anonymous - the periodical reviewer who can be teased into attributed authorship by computational analysis. Where Moore has been well-served by Irish literary critics and those interested in the matter of word and music in the Irish Melodies, Tonra moves the critical ground in an entirely new direction, offering sophisticated and always throughful readings in Romantic book history and the digital humanities while bringing them round to the contrasting distant and close reading of Moore and his contemporaries." Matthew Campbell, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York

• Introduction Chapter one: Of Little Consequence: Pseudonym, Paratext, and Authorship in Moore’s Early Poetry Chapter two: If England Doesn’t Read Us, Who the Devil Will?: Reprinting Moore in the United States Chapter three: Cream of the Copyrights: Authorship in the Publication History of Lalla Rookh Chapter four: Orientalising the Angels: Blasphemy, Copyright, and Revision Chapter five: These Quick-Reading Times: Distant Reading Moore’s Poetic Style Conclusion