C. Franklin – författare

This is the first biography of Byron to focus on the poet as a professional writer and the circumstances of literary production of his major poems. It shows how Byron interacted and collaborated with other writers; how he tailored his writing to different circles of readers when experimenting with genre, style, and serial publication; how he negotiated with his publishers in establishing the bounds of his challenge to political, sexual and religious conventions. His aristocratic status enabled him to combine the face-saving appearance of insouciant dilettantism with an actual writing practice as dedicatedly professional in many ways as that of novelists like Scott or Dickens.

This biography of Byron focuses on the poet as a professional writer and the circumstances of literary production of his major poems. It shows how Byron interacted and collaborated with other writers; how he tailored his writing to different circles of readers when experimenting with genre, style, and serial publication; and how he negotiated with his publishers in establishing the bounds of his challenge to political, sexual and religious conventions. His aristocratic status enabled him to combine the face-saving appearance of insouciant dilettantism with an actual writing practice as dedicatedly professional in many ways as that of novelists like Scott or Dickens.

These essays explore the remarkable expansion of publishing from 1750 to 1850 which reflected the growth of literacy and the diversification of the reading public. Experimentation with new genres, methods of advertising, marketing and dissemination, forms of critical reception and modes of access to writing are also examined in detail. This collection represents a new wave of critical writing extending cultural materialism beyond its accustomed concern with historicizing the words on the page into the economics of literature and the investigation of neglected areas of print culture.

Mary Wollstonecraft was an extraordinary individual, yet her literary life exemplifies how many women of that time adopted print culture to bring about change. This study argues that protestant society had traditionally sanctioned women's role in spreading literacy, but this became politicized in the 1790s. Wollstonecraft's literary vocation was shaped by the high expectations of the power of print to educate and reform individuals and society, in the radical circles of the Unitarian publisher Joseph Johnson, and the Girondins in revolutionary Paris.

Mary Wollstonecraft was an extraordinary individual, yet her literary life exemplifies how many women of that time adopted print culture to bring about change. This study argues that protestant society had traditionally sanctioned women's role in spreading literacy, but this became politicized in the 1790s. Wollstonecraft's literary vocation was shaped by the high expectations of the power of print to educate and reform individuals and society, in the radical circles of the Unitarian publisher Joseph Johnson, and the Girondins in revolutionary Paris.