David Fairer – författare

In this revisionary study of the poetry of Coleridge, Wordsworth and their friends during the 'revolutionary decade' David Fairer questions the accepted literary history of the period and the critical vocabulary we use to discuss it. The book examines why, at a time of radical upheaval when continuities of all kinds (personal, political, social, and cultural) were being challenged, this group of poets explored themes of inheritance, retrospect, revisiting, and recovery. Organising Poetry charts their struggles to find meaning not through vision and symbol but from connection and dialogue. By placing these poets in the context of an eighteenth-century 'organic' tradition, Fairer moves the emphasis away from the language of idealist 'Romantic' theory towards an empirical stress on how identities are developed and sustained through time. Locke's concept of personal identity as a continued organisation 'partaking of one common life' offered not only a model for a reformed British constitution but a way of thinking about the self, art and friendship, which these poets found valuable. The key term, therefore, is not 'unity' but 'integrity'. In this context of a need to sustain and organise diversity and give it meaning, the book offers original readings of some well known poems of the 1790s, including Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey' and 'The Ruined Cottage', and Coleridge's conversation poems 'The Eolian Harp', 'This Lime-Tree Bower', and 'Frost at Midnight'. Organising Poetry represents an important contribution to current critical debates about the nature of poetic creativity during this period and the need to recognise its more communal and collaborative aspects.

Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry (1774-81) was the great pioneering work of English literary history. Telling the story from the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the seventeenth century, Warton's volumes gave Britain a first real sense of the full richness of its literary past. For the first time the ^History of English Poetry is being published in as complete a form as possible. Warton never lived to finish the work, and just eighty-eight pages of a fourth volume were left in print when he died. These pages are included in Volume Four of this edition. David Fairer has also provided a substantial Appendix of extra material which consists of: a new transcript of a manuscript "continuation" of the History now at Winchester College; a selection of pages from the surviving proof copies of Volumes Two and Three as corrected for the press; and a facsimile of material from several of Warton's notebooks showing different stages of his work. The whole is completed with William Fillingham's 1806 Index to the History.In his 30,000 word Introduction, David Fairer examines the development of Warton's work through all its stages from manuscript to print, and discusses the nature and significance of it. This is the fullest and most complete edition to be published, and will provide research libraries with a valuable supplement to the original.

This set publishes two of the most influential critical works of the eighteenth century together for the first time. Richard Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance and the second (enlarged) edition of Thomas Warton's Observations on the Fairy Queen appeared within a few months of each other in 1762. These two books, which together represented a new 'historical' criticism, established Spenser's Faerie Queene as a 'romantic' poem in the tradition of medieval romance and fictions of chivalry.With the recent surge of interest in the eighteenth century origins of the literary canon, Hurd and Warton have attracted new critical attention as major figures of the Spenser revival of the time. Fairer's introduction draws on newly discovered material to place the works in their contemporary context. This set will prove an attractive and useful volume for Spenserians and eighteenth century scholars alike.

In recent years the canon of eighteenth-century poetry has greatly expanded to include women poets, labouring-class and provincial poets, and many previously unheard voices. Fairer’s book takes up the challenge this ought to pose to our traditional understanding of the subject. This book seeks to question some of the structures, categories, and labels that have given the age its reassuring shape in literary history. In doing so Fairer offers a fresh and detailed look at a wide range of material.

Currently the definitive text in the field and now available in an expanded third edition, Eighteenth-Century Poetry presents the rich diversity of English poetry from 1700-1800 in authoritative texts and with full scholarly annotation. Balanced to reflect current interests and "favorites" (including prominent poets like Finch, Swift, Pope, Montagu, Johnson, Gray, Burns, and Cowper) as well as  less familiar material, offering a variety of voices and new directions for research and learningIncludes 46 new poems with more texts by women poets and the inclusion of four additional poets (Mary Barber, Mehetabel Wright, Anna Seward, and Mary Robinson); poems reflecting new ecological approaches to 18th-century literature; and poems on the art of writingAccessible and user-friendly, with generous head notes, full foot-of-page annotations, an expanded thematic index, and a visually appealing text design

In recent years the canon of eighteenth-century poetry has greatly expanded to include women poets, labouring-class and provincial poets, and many previously unheard voices. Fairer’s book takes up the challenge this ought to pose to our traditional understanding of the subject. This book seeks to question some of the structures, categories, and labels that have given the age its reassuring shape in literary history. In doing so Fairer offers a fresh and detailed look at a wide range of material.

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.

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.

THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 24 April 1708. A performance of Macbeth is under way when disaster strikes and the stage becomes a scene of elemental chaos – and for Widow Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree Chocolate House, a new adventure begins, involving murder, poison, fire, and a rogue elephant . . .Devoted fans of Chocolate House Treason will welcome this second novel in the Chocolate House Mysteries series, which captures all the energies of the early eighteenth-century theatre. We move among the eccentric characters of the Theatre Royal company, in Drury Lane and at the exuberant May Fair where the actors moonlight in the fairground booths.The puritanical reformers are determined to close the theatre and abolish the Fair, and ‘accidents’ begin to happen – but Mary Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree are determined to expose the conspiracy, and the action reaches its climax at the Fair when the players are faced with the ultimate act of terror.Once again, David Fairer offers the delights of the classic eighteenth-century novel, intricately weaving a murder mystery with authentic history, and bringing the London of Queen Anne to life.

Captain Hazard’s Game, third in the Chocolate House Mysteries series, conjures up the vibrant life of early eighteenth-century gamesters and money-men, a world of deception where risk could bring huge rewards – especially when you turned the stock-market by false news or shortened the odds by cheating. It was a scene where all was in hazard and life lived on the edge.The book weaves its classic murder mystery around actual events of October 1708, and we move among a rich cast of characters, both in Vandernan’s gaming-house, Covent Garden, and the notorious Exchange Alley.Playing Captain Hazard’s Game brings murder and scandal uncomfortably close, and Widow Trotter and her friends at the Bay-Tree are drawn into a frenzied game of chance and speculation at a time when the market was unregulated. Fortunes were made overnight, and ruin could descend in a single hour. People played for the highest stakes, and men of power manipulated things for their own ends. In this book the chocolate house itself comes under threat as Mary Trotter, with help from her young friends Tom and Will, struggles to find the truth behind an ingenious system of deception. Once again, she presides over the novel, as she does over the Bay-Tree, with good humour, fierce integrity, and resolute determination.

When macho thriller writer Graham Tomlinson is rebranded by his agent as “Tamara Wilde, Mistress of Cosy Crime”, he swaps Yorkshire noir for the picture-postcard Cotswolds – only to find the village of Flitchcombe-on-the-Water is far from cosy…With its eccentric locals, simmering feuds and a book group bristling with dark secrets, he is surrounded by irresistible material for his new novel. But when the man he has chosen as the victim in his fictional plot turns up dead, fiction and reality collide spectacularly.From drugged hunting dogs to clandestine rites on Gallows Hill, Graham is dragged into a tangle of ancient scandals and modern crime. His life depends on him embracing both sides of himself, the tough Tom Stone and intuitive Tamara Wilde, and uncovering the truth before it is too late…