Jillian Heydt-Stevenson, Professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is the author of Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions (2005), co-editor of Recognizing the Romantic Novel (2008), associate editor of the Cornell Wordsworth's Last Poems: 1821–1850 (1999), and author of a wide variety of articles and chapters on Romantic-era topics and writers.

'How do you say “we're all kind of the same” without lapsing into the white supremacy and patriarchy – and speciesism – that contaminated how that was said in the Enlightenment? This is, to put it mildly, an important question right now. And this book does a wonderful, deep-tissue scholarship version of addressing that question. It's beautifully written, international in scope and packed with insight, and its apparatus is scintillating and kaleidoscopic like a titanic tin of Quality Street. Heydt-Stevenson shows us that good work in the humanities can change the direction of thinking, not just about novels and poems, but in 'philosophy', 'culture' and even science.' Timothy Morton, author of Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology

• Introduction: the 'delectable valleys' of things; 1. Moving together: restoring imperfection in the Venus de' Medici and lady Delacour; 2. A resuscitating thing theory: gender and embodied cosmopolitanism in Corinne ou l'Italie's monuments; 3. Listening to the radiant voices of others: Diamonds and Jewels in Les bijoux indiscrets and Belinda; 4. Recycling and re-embodying, twining and untwining: Paul et Virginie and its after-things; 5. Recognizing the right to protection: the scandal and sanctuary of hats in Evelina, the Wanderer, and Desmond; 6. Conclusion: living in a material World; Select bibliography; Index.