'An important and serious contribution to the field … an interesting intervention in a growing field and Bohls's consideration of women writers in particular is timely. Importantly, the argument of the book reverses the practice, prevalent in post-structuralist criticism, of isolating the aesthetic debates of the eighteenth century away from their immediate cultural context. Bohls's work, by contrast, explores the interaction between aesthetic ambitions and the practices of eighteenth century social life. In this respect Bohl's book deserves much credit.' English

• 1. Aesthetics and Orientalism in Mary Wortley Montagu's letters; 2. Janet Schaw and the aesthetics of colonialism; 3. Landscape aesthetics and the paradox of the female picturesque; 4. Helen Maria Williams' revolutionary landscapes; 5. Mary Wollstonecraft's anti-aesthetics; 6. Dorothy Wordsworth and the cultural politics of scenic tourism; 7. The picturesque and the female sublime in Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho; 8. Aesthetics, gender, and empire in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

'An important and serious contribution to the field … an interesting intervention in a growing field and Bohls's consideration of women writers in particular is timely. Importantly, the argument of the book reverses the practice, prevalent in post-structuralist criticism, of isolating the aesthetic debates of the eighteenth century away from their immediate cultural context. Bohls's work, by contrast, explores the interaction between aesthetic ambitions and the practices of eighteenth century social life. In this respect Bohl's book deserves much credit.' English

• 1. Aesthetics and Orientalism in Mary Wortley Montagu's letters; 2. Janet Schaw and the aesthetics of colonialism; 3. Landscape aesthetics and the paradox of the female picturesque; 4. Helen Maria Williams' revolutionary landscapes; 5. Mary Wollstonecraft's anti-aesthetics; 6. Dorothy Wordsworth and the cultural politics of scenic tourism; 7. The picturesque and the female sublime in Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho; 8. Aesthetics, gender, and empire in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

'An important and serious contribution to the field … an interesting intervention in a growing field and Bohls's consideration of women writers in particular is timely. Importantly, the argument of the book reverses the practice, prevalent in post-structuralist criticism, of isolating the aesthetic debates of the eighteenth century away from their immediate cultural context. Bohls's work, by contrast, explores the interaction between aesthetic ambitions and the practices of eighteenth century social life. In this respect Bohl's book deserves much credit.' English

• 1. Aesthetics and Orientalism in Mary Wortley Montagu's letters; 2. Janet Schaw and the aesthetics of colonialism; 3. Landscape aesthetics and the paradox of the female picturesque; 4. Helen Maria Williams' revolutionary landscapes; 5. Mary Wollstonecraft's anti-aesthetics; 6. Dorothy Wordsworth and the cultural politics of scenic tourism; 7. The picturesque and the female sublime in Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho; 8. Aesthetics, gender, and empire in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.