Reviews, 1998

--A, B, C--

Allen, Graham. "The Mother of Feminism: A Contemporary Wollstonecraft?" Rev. of The Vindications: The Rights of Men, The Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1998/v/n10/005799ar.html>.

Anon. Rev. of Approaches to Teaching British Women Poets of the Romantic Period, ed. Stephen C. Behrendt and Harriet Kramer Linkin. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 410.

"This remarkably useful volume of short essays reveals how far the study of women poets has transformed the field of Romanticism" (410).

Anon. Rev. of Byron's "Don Juan" and the Don Juan Legend, by Moyra Haslett. NCL 53.1 (June 1998): 133.

Anon. Rev. of Byron's "Don Juan" and the Don Juan Legend, by Moyra Haslett. Virginia Quarterly Review 74.3 (Summer 1998): 82.

Anon. Rev. of Lessons of Romanticism: A Critical Companion, ed. Thomas Pfau and Robert F. Gleckner. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 416.

"Since this substantial volume does not contain a conventional introduction, it remains somewhat hard to tell exactly what brings together the twenty-two essays on topics as broad as 'Postmodernism, Romanticism, and John Clare' (Theresa M. Kelley) and 'A Lesson in Romanticism: Gendering the Soul' (Susan J. Wolfson)."

Anon. Rev. of Literature of the Romantic Period: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Michael O'Neill. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 415.

"The eighteen essays included in this volume adopt a quite familiar approach to Romantic writing" (418).

Anon. Rev. of Maurice, or, The Fisher's Cot, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Publishers Weekly, (Oct. 26, 1998): 45.

Anon. Rev. of Reading Public Romanticism, by Paul Magnuson. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 414.

"Magnuson's study focuses on how canonical Romantic lyrics occupy a distinctive public discourse that various formalist and historicist methods tend to ignore . . . Chapters feature detailed explorations of 'Frost at Midnight,' Lyrical Ballads, and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.'"

Anon. Rev. of Rising Star: Dandyism, Gender, and Performance in the Fin de Siecle, by Rhonda K. Garelick. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 412.

"Written in a lively and eminently readable style, Garelick's concise book concentrates on the impact that Dandyism had on quite familiar figures in the nineteenth century." Garelick's discussion of Loie Fuller's position, as a "proto-camp queen" in her turn-of-the-century dance performances in Paris are "most original."

Anon. Rev. of The Internal and the External: A Comparison of the Artistic Use of Natural Imagery in English Romantic and Chinese Classic Poetry, by Zuoya Cao. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 411.

"This is a rather mechanical comparative analysis . . . The conclusion reveals that 'Chinese poets' ways of connecting the internal and the external are different from those of Romantic poets, and illustrates how Chinese poets achieve the merging of the internal and the external.'"

Armstrong, Isobel. Rev. of Romantic Women Poets: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, and British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology, ed. Paula R. Feldman. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 8-9.

Bainbridge, Simon. Rev. of Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780-1834, ed. Alan Richardson and Sonia Hofkosh. BJ 26 (1998): 135-36.

Ballaster, Ros. Rev. of The Visual and the Verbal Sketch in British Romanticism, by Richard C. Sha. TLS 4976 (Aug. 14, 1998): 27.

Banerjee. A. Rev. of George Gordon, Lord Byron: A Comprehensive, Annotated Research Bibliography of Secondary Materials in English, 1973-1994, by Clement Tyson Goode, Jr. ES 79.5 (Sept. 1998): 477-78.

"This book amasses about 9,000 items on or about Byron that were published over a period of only 21 years. It gives a thorough and comprehensive list of books, articles, and even important reviews on Byron, usefully indexing them by author, poem, and subject. Students and researchers alike will find it a useful work."

Baulch, David M. Rev. of Arrow of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity, by Ira Livingston. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Beatty, Bernard. Rev. of Dramatic Speculation and the Quest for Faith in Lord Byron's Cain, by Larry Brunner. BJ 26 (1998): 116.

Bernadette, J. J. Rev. of Critical Essays on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, by Mary Lowe-Evans. Choice 36.1 (Sept. 1998): 124.

Bernstein, Richard. "Byron's Attraction to Life Beyond the Boundary." Rev. of On a Voiceless Shore: Byron in Greece, by Stephen Minta. New York Times, Jan. 7, 1998, E10.

Bewell, Alan. Rev. of Keats and History, ed. Nicholas Roe. KSJ 47 (1998): 184-85.

Bone, Drummond. Rev. of The Lives of the Great Romantics I: Shelley, Byron, and Wordsworth by Their Contemporaries, gen. ed. John Mullan; vol. 1: Shelley, ed. John Mullan; vol.2: Byron, ed. Chris Hart; vol. 3: Wordsworth, ed. Peter Swaab. BJ 26 (1998): 128-29.

Botting, Fred. Rev. of The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle, by Kelly Hurley, and Alien Nation: Nineteenth-Century Gothic Fictions and English Nationality, by Cannon Schmitt. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Bradley, Arthur. Rev. of The Lives of the Great Romantics II: Keats, Coleridge, and Scott by Their Contemporaries, gen. ed. John Mullan; vol. 1: Keats, ed. Jennifer Wallace; vol. 2: Coleridge, ed. Ralph Pite; vol. 3: Scott, ed. Fiona Robertson. BJ 26 (1998): 129-30.

Brant, Clare. Rev. of Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, ed. Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley. RES 49.193 (Feb. 1998): 98-100.

"This volume emphasizes the need to redress critical neglect of women writers. It disclaims a new canon, though Hemans, Barbauld, Baillie, and Robinson are shaping up as contenders. Some canonical figures are discussed, including Mary Shelley and Maria Edgeworth. As a collection, it has energy, focus, and creative diversity, and it argues succinctly for the need for romanticisms" (98).

Broman, Thomas H. Rev. of The Transformation of German Academic Medicine, 1750-1820, by Karl J. Fink. Eighteenth Century Studies 32:1 (Fall 1998): 125-26.

The author argues "that before the turn of the century the training of doctors was largely pragmatic, more dependent on the printed word than on the experimental lab, which culminated in dissertations written in Latin" (126).

Brown, Jane K. Rev. of Critical Approaches to Goethe's Classical Dramas: "Iphigenie," "Torquato Tasso," and "Die Naturliche Tochter," by Irmgard Wagner. SIR 37:2 (Summer 1998): 285-87.

"The texts are the one thing this book does not really illuminate" (287).

Burwick, Frederick. Rev. of The Romantic Reformation: Religious Politics in English Literature 1789-1824, by Robert M. Ryan. ERR 9:3 (Summer 1998): 421-26.

Cantor, Paul A. Rev. of The Reception of Myth in English Romanticism, by Anthony John Harding. MP 95.3 (Feb. 1998): 411-14.

Cevasco, G. A. Rev. of Byron's "Corbeau Blanc": The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne, ed. Jonathan David Gross. Choice 35.8 (Apr. 1998): 1373.

Chandler, David. Rev. of A Quest for Home: Reading Robert Southey, by Christopher J. P. Smith. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Christy, Desmond. Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. Guardian, Oct. 3, 1998, 11.

Claridge, Laura. Rev. of Sexual Power in British Romantic Poetry, by Daniel P. Watkins. KSJ 47 (1998): 209-11.

Clark, Tom. "Biography Seeks the Politics Behind Keats." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 29, 1998, REV6.

Clery, E. J. Rev. of Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, ed. Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley. BJ 26 (1998): 133-35.

Clubbe, John. Rev. of Byron and Spain: Itinerary in the Writing of Place, by Diego Saglia. BJ 26 (1998): 118-19.

Clubbe, John. Rev. of George Gordon, Lord Byron. A Comprehensive, Annotated Research Bibliography of Secondary Materials in English 1973-1994, by Clement Tyson Goode, Jr. KSJ 47 (1998): 199-200.

Cooper, Christine M. Rev. of Gender, Genre, and the Romantic Poets: An Introduction, by Philip Cox. KSJ 47 (1998): 206-8.

Cox, Jeffrey N., and Charles Snodgrass. Rev. of Romanticism: The CD-Rom, ed. David Miall and Duncan Wu (Blackwell Publishers, 1997). Romantic Circles Reviews 1.3 (Spring 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/>.

Crochunis, Tom. Rev. of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, by Linda Kelly. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Cronin, Richard. Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Cronin, Richard. Rev. of The Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley. N&Q 45.1 (Mar. 1998): 127-29.

"With the publication of these eight volumes, the great bulk of Mary Shelley's writing, both published and unpublished, is in print for the first time. The one significant and regrettable exception is the lyric poetry that might usefully have been included here."

Crook, Nora. Rev. of The Last Man, by Mary Shelley, ed. Anne McWhir, and Lodore, by Mary Shelley, ed. Lisa Vargo. RoN 11 (Aug. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Crossan, Greg. Rev. of The Lives of the Great Romantics II: Keats, Coleridge, and Scott by Their Contemporaries, gen. ed. John Mullan; vol. 1: Keats, ed. Jennifer Wallace; vol. 2: Coleridge, ed. Ralph Pite; vol. 3: Scott, ed. Fiona Robertson. N&Q 45.3 (Sept. 1998): 389-91.

"Many of the items in this volume are already available to us. Each piece is accompanied by a careful and judicious introduction, placing it in its literary and biographical context, and many well-researched notes are provided to explain obscure, and sometimes not so obscure, allusions. There are also, however, some inconsistencies."

--D, E, F--

Davis, Nick. Rev. of Reinventing Allegory, by Theresa M. Kelley. BJ 26 (1998): 141-42.

Dickinson, H. T. Rev. of Gentleman Radical: A Life of John Horne Tooke, 1736-1812, by Christina and David Bewley. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 32.

Dickstein, Morris. "The Soul of a Poet." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. NYTBR, Feb. 1, 1998, 7, 13.

Drabelle, Dennis. "Polar Attractions." Rev. of I May Be Some Time, by Francis Spufford. Washington Post, Feb. 1, 1998, WBK3.

Eilenberg, Susan. Rev. of Rhetorical Traditions and British Romantic Literature, ed. Don H. Bialostosky and Lawrence D. Needham. MP 95.3 (Feb. 1998): 414-19.

Esterhammer, Angela. Rev. of Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination, by Frederick Burwick. ERR 9.1 (Winter 1998): 124-28.

Felluga, Dino Franco. Rev. of Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire, by Katie Trumpener. NCL 53:1 (June 1998): 111-16.

"Trumpener's breadth is at once what recommends her book to readers interested in the Romantic novel, nineteenth century colonial texts, or Romantic theories of nationalism, and what perhaps leads to some of the book's shortcomings" (115).

Fenton, James. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe. NYRB 45.8 (May 14, 1998): 39-41.

Fetherling, Douglas. "Poets, Pirates, and Pacific Adventurers." Rev. of On a Voiceless Shore: Byron in Greece, by Stephen Minta. Ottawa Citizen, June 28, 1998, C15.

Fitzgerald, William. Rev. of Leaves of Mourning: Hölderlin's Late Work, with an Essay on Keats and Melancholy, by Anselm Haverkamp, and Ends of the Lyric: Direction and Consequence in Western Poetry, by Timothy Bahti. MP 96.2 (Nov. 1998): 260-63

Anselm Haverkamp's book is a translation of his Laub Voll Trauer: Hölderlin's Späte Allegorie (Munich, 1991), with an appended essay on Keats written in English. "There are five chapters, each of which interweaves a reading of a single poem (one by Albrecht von Haller, three by Hölderlin, and one by Keats) with readings in a particular philosopher (Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Kant, again, and Locke, respectively)" (260). The Keats chapter of Bahti's book focuses on the two Hyperion poems and "is a fascinating discussion of Keats's effort to 'write what it means to read one's own text'" (264). Bahti responds to Barbara Herrnstein Smith's Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End (Chicago, 1968), reversing her project by exploring "non-closure" in the European lyric. "His master trope is 'chiasmus' and he finds it on all levels of the lyric" (263).

Flanagan, Thomas. Rev. of Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary, by Stella Tillyard. New York Times (July 19, 1998): 10.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who led the Irish rebellion of 1798 by the United Irish leaders, came from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, one that "in the Middle Ages virtually ruled Ireland." His older brother became Duke of Leinster and his mother, a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, joined them to the greatest of England's Whig families. Fitzgerald was the subject of a biography by the Irish romantic poet, Thomas Moore.

Fleming, Anne. Rev. of Byron's "Corbeau Blanc": The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne, ed. Jonathan David Gross. BJ 26 (1998): 121-22.

Fleming, Anne. Rev. of George Gordon, Lord Byron: A Comprehensive, Annotated Research Bibliography of Secondary Materials in English, 1973-1994, by Clement Tyson Goode, Jr. NCL 52.4 (Mar. 1998): 550-51.

Franklin, Caroline. Rev. of Literature and the Marketplace: Romantic Writers and Their Audiences in Great Britain and the United States, by William Rowland, Jr. BJ 26 (1998): 137-39.

French, Lorely. Rev. of Phantom Formations: Aesthetic Ideology and the Bildungsroman, by Marc Redfield. ERR 9.1 (Winter 1998): 128-34.

Friedman, Geraldine. Rev. of Napoleon and English Romanticism, by Simon Bainbridge. JEGP 97.2 (Apr. 1998): 280-82.

Fulford, Tim. Rev. of The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender, and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel, by Markman Ellis. RoN 11 (Aug. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Fulford, Tim. Rev. of The Romantic Reformation: Religious Politics in English Literature, 1789-1824, by Robert M. Ryan, and British Satire and the Politics of Style, by Gary Dyer. BJ 26 (1998): 132-33.

--G, H, I--

Gelpi, Barbara. Rev. of The Vision of "Love's Rare Universe": A Study of Shelley's Epipsychidion, by K. D. Verma. KSJ 47 (1998): 189-92.

Gill, Stephen. Rev. of "The Hidden Wordsworth: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy, by Kenneth R. Johnston. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 3-4.

Gioia, Dana. "The Poet of Truth and Beauty." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. Washington Post, Feb. 1, 1998, WBK4.

Gleckner, Robert F. Rev. of Questioning Romanticism, ed. John Beer. SIR 37:2 (Summer 1998): 292-94.

Graver, Bruce. Rev. of Lyrical Ballads 1800, by William Wordsworth, intr. Jonathan Wordsworth. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Gross, Jonathan David. Rev. of The Shelley-Byron Conversation, by William Brewer. Romantic Circles Reviews 1.3 (Spring 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/>.

Hill-Miller, Katherine C. Rev. of Mary Shelley Revisited, by Johanna M. Smith. KSJ 47 (1998): 195-97.

Hitchens, Christopher. "A Poet's Last Stand." Rev. of On a Voiceless Shore: Byron in Greece, by Stephen Minta. Washington Post, Mar. 1, 1998, WBK5.

Hoagwood, Terence Allan. Rev. of Napoleon and English Romanticism, by Simon Bainbridge. MP 96.2 (Nov. 1998): 266-69.

Hobsbaum, Philip. Rev. of British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology, ed. Paula R. Feldman. KSR 12 (1998): 168-75.

"British Women Poets of the Romantic Period is an historical rather than a literary publication. At least as compelling as this selection from the works of the women involved are the biographies that precede each selection" (168). "Too many of these literary women suffered wrongs and setbacks, but few possessed the technique to embody them in their verse" (171). Anna Seward (1742-1809) and Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) are the "initiators of a distinctive School of Night" (171). Smith's Elegiac Sonnets (1784) preceded Wordsworth's; Seward's Original Sonnets on Various Subjects (1799) was praised in The Critical Review and in The Gentleman's Magazine.

Holmes, Richard. Rev. of Coleridge in Italy, by Edoardo Zuccato. BJ 26 (1998): 124-26.

See No. 342.

Hynes, James. Rev. of Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, ill. Philippe Munch, and Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, adapted and ill. by Chris Mould. NYTBR 103 (Oct. 18, 1998): 30.

--J, K, L--

Janowitz, Anne. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe. Romantic Circles Reviews 1.3 (Spring 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/>.

Janowitz, Anne. Rev. of The Poetics of Sensibility: A Revolution in Literary Style, by Jerome J. McGann. KSJ 47 (1998): 203-4.

Janowitz, Anne. Rev. of Romanticism, History, and the Possibilities of Genre: Re-forming Literature, 1789-1837, ed. Tilottama Rajan and Julia M. Wright. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 14. See No. 305.

Jarman, Paul. Rev. of A Quest for Home: Reading Robert Southey, by Christopher J. P. Smith. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 9.

Jones, Nicholas. Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. America 179.6 (Sept. 12, 1998): 21.

Jones, Steven. Rev. of The Frankenstein Notebook: A Facsimile Edition of Mary Shelley's Novel, 1816-17 (Parts 1 and 2), vol. 9 of The Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics, gen. ed. Donald H. Reiman. Romantic Circles Reviews 1.2 (Winter 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/robinson.html>.

Karlin, Daniel. Rev. of Wordsworth and the Victorians, by Stephen Gill. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 15-16.

Kautz, Beth Dolan. Rev. of Valperga, or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, ed. Stuart Curran. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Romantic Circles Reviews 2.1 (Fall 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/>.

"The Oxford edition is not only an excellent resource for scholarly study, but also an affordable and portable alternative for the classroom. Curran's presentation of the novel, from his introduction to his last footnote, brings both fourteenth- and nineteenth-century Italian culture to life and invites readers to consider Mary Shelley's novel in a political framework." This edition includes a selected bibliography and a concise chronology that "lists the salient publications, travels, births and deaths of the Shelley circle."

Keegan, Paul. Rev. of The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style, by Tom Paulin. TLS 4973 (July 24, 1998): 3-5.

Keegan comments on the book's attention to Hazlitt's prose style, noting that it is "both scholarly and a work of affinity with the 19th-century essayist." Paulin comments more extensively than previous critics have on Hazlitt's interest in painting and sculpture. "An exploration of form is omitted, however, as is the question of Hazlitt's evolution."

Kelly, Gary. Rev. of Women Writing about Money: Women's Fiction in England, 1780-1820, by Edward Copeland. SIR 37:2 (Summer 1998): 279-81.

Kerr, Sarah. Rev. of The Traitor's Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816, by Fintan O'Toole. New York Times, Dec. 13, 1998, 6-9.

For O'Toole, Sheridan remained "first and foremost, an Irishman. When he wrote plays, Irishness was the outsider's point of view that supplied the double-entendres. When he entered politics, Ireland's plight fed his sympathy with oppressed pawns of colonialism and with humble people everywhere who lived under laws that failed to serve them" (6).

Kielstra, Julia Paulman. Rev. of Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, ed. Claire Grogan. RoN 11 (Aug. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Klancher, Jon. Rev. of England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism, by James Chandler. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 4-6.

Kneale, J. Douglas. Rev. of Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism, by Susan J. Wolfson. ERR 9.1 (Winter 1998): 142-47.

Kovach, Thomas. Rev. of The Elusiveness of Tolerance: The "Jewish Question" from Lessing to the Napoleonic Wars, by Peter R. Erspamer. Eighteenth Century Studies 32:1 (Fall 1998): 127-28.

Labbe, Jacqueline M. "Feeling Others' Feelings." Rev. of Strange Fits of Passion: Epistemologies of Emotion, Hume to Austen, by Adela Pinch. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Lambert, Elizabeth. Rev. of Edmund Burke and India: Political Morality and Empire, by Frederick G. Whelan. Eighteenth Century Studies 32:1 (Fall 1998): 120-22.

"Whelan adds a much needed dimension to this study of Burke and India by using the historical moment of Warren Hastings's impeachment trial to delineate the specific features of Burke's political theory" (119). Whelan notes how Burke's twenty two "Articles of Charge" against Warren Hastings were reduced to four of the strongest; Burke focused on Hastings' "bribes" and the "fraudulent way he awarded contracts" (119).

Lapp, Robert. Rev. of Napoleon and English Romanticism, by Simon Bainbridge. ERR 9.1 (Winter 1998): 137-41.

Lau, Beth. Rev. of Influence and Resistance in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry, ed. G. Kim Blank and Margot K. Louis, and Romantic Influences: Contemporary-Victorian-Modern, by John Beer. SIR 37:1 (Spring 1998): 112-18.

Lau, Beth. Rev. of Wollstonecraft's Daughters: Womanhood in England and France, 1780-1920, ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr. Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 40.3 (Summer 1998): 469-72.

"Perhaps the chief impression left by this collection of essays is of the mixed motives, strange bedfellows, unfortunate consequences, and overall complex and untidy nature of feminism in the nineteenth century" (471). Pam Hirsch's essay considers "Wollstonecraft's Problematic Legacy" (470), while Maire Fedelma Cross discusses Wollstonecraft's influence on the French feminist and socialist Flora Tristan.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "Awaking the Poet from Those Sweet Dreams of Truth, Beauty, and Loss." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. New York Times on the Web, Jan. 12, 1998, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/>.

Litvack, Leon. Rev. of Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780-1834, ed. Alan Richardson and Sonia Hofkosh. Criticism 40.4 (Fall 1998): 640-43.

"There are . . . difficulties which arise . . . from making easy assumptions about the nature and purpose of imperial endeavor, but more significantly from the formation of unsubstantiated associations between the terms of colonial discourse, and the more recent---and emotive---characteristics and concerns of postcolonial literature and theory, with their strong political dimension" (643). This volume indicates the "potential for viewing Romanticism through the lenses of colonial discourse" (643).

--M, N, O--

Mahoney, Charles. Rev. of The Examiner, 1813-1817, ed. Yasuo Deguchi. Romantic Circles Reviews 2.1 (Fall 1998): <http://www.rc.umd.edu/reviews/>.

Marsland, Clive. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe. KSR 12 (1998): 155-58.

Roe's book is "part historicist, part biographical, part close reading. The important thesis is that Keats is not a poet of dissent by cultural default--the kind of error-prone poet symptomised by critics as different as Christopher Ricks or Marjorie Levinson" (156). Keats is not an example of "apathetic sublimity," but a poet whose work is "both liberal and dissenting in its ideology and its tone" (156).

Marsland, Clive. Rev. of Royal Mourning and Regency Culture: Elegies and Memorials of Princess Charlotte, by Stephen C. Behrendt. KSR 12 (1998): 175-77.

Behrendt "clearly and elegantly negotiates the social grief, mass hysteria and genuine pathos which Charlotte's death occasioned, and demonstrates how pivotal a figure she was in terms of society's views both of royalty and of itself" (176). Charlotte's death recounted "a key transition from libertinism as a royal and national prerogative . . . towards a less defensive, more confident Victorianism, rooted in all things good--happy marriages, productive and faithful nuclearity as a social norm . . . the improved agency of women in society" (176).

Martin, Rebecca E. Rev. of Modern Gothic: A Reader, ed. Victor Sage and Allan Lloyd Smith. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

McLane, Maureen. "Literary Relic: A Newly Found Children's Tale by Mary Shelley Echoes Her Familiar Melancholy Undertone." Rev. of Maurice, or, The Fisher's Cot, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Chicago Tribune, Nov. 22, 1998, 14, 3.

McLane, Maureen. "Friendly Guide: A Look at the Life of Lady Melbourne, Lord Byron's Confidante." Review of Byron's "Corbeau Blanc": The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne, ed. Jonathan David Gross. Chicago Tribune, Sept. 27, 1998, 14:23.

Mee, Jon. Rev. of The Romantic Reformation: Religious Politics in English Literature 1789-1824, by Robert M. Ryan. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Morrison, Robert. Rev. of De Quincey's Romanticism: Canonical Minority and the Forms of Transmission, by Margaret Russett. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Morrison, Robert. Rev. of Keats: Bicentenary Readings, ed. Nicholas Roe. KSR 12 (1998): 147-49.

"The critical approaches taken in these essays are diverse and penetrating, and broadly speaking, they both extend the humanist tradition of Keatsian scholarship and counter the new historicism of works such as Marjorie Levinson's Keats's Life of Allegory: The Origins of a Style (1988) . . . In its ability to rebut and assimilate the new historicist camp, the volume charts where Keatsian criticism has been, and suggests the directions in which it is heading" (147).

Moss, John. Rev. of Romanticism and the Self-Conscious Poem, by Michael O'Neill. KSR 12 (1998): 159-64.

For O'Neill, the difference between Romantic poets and "their modern demystifiers is one of imaginative power and linguistic resourcefulness" (160). Moss criticizes O'Neill's study for its development of the metaphor of a "self-conscious poem" (162) because O'Neill's personification of poems attributes agency to the poem rather than to the poet.

Murphy, Peter T. Rev. of Majestic Indolence: English Romantic Poetry and the Work of Art, by Willard Spiegelman. SIR 37:1 (Spring 1998): 119-21.

Newey, Vincent. Rev. of The Myth of the Bad Lord Byron, by Anne Fleming. BJ 26 (1998): 119-20.

Nicholson, Andrew. Rev. of Byron's Don Juan and the Don Juan Legend, by Moyra Haslett. BJ 26 (1998): 116-18.

Nicholson, Andrew. Rev. of George Gordon, Lord Byron: A Comprehensive, Annotated Research Bibliography of Secondary Materials in English 1973-1994, ed. Clement Tyson Goode, Jr. RoN 11 (Aug. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

Nicholson, Eirwen. Rev. of The Age of Caricature; Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III, by Diana Donald. History 83.272 (Oct. 1998): 734-35.

"This well-written, generously illustrated, and scholarly book considers satirical prints during the reign of George III. It discusses the early historiography of English caricature in the writings of Lamb, Hazlitt, J. P. Malcolm, and Thackeray."

O'Donnell, Brennan. Rev. of The Five-Book Prelude, by William Wordsworth, ed. Duncan Wu. RoN 9 (Feb. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

O'Neill, Michael. Rev. of Coleridge on Dreaming: Romanticism, Dreams, and the Medical Imagination, by Jennifer Ford. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 14.

O'Neill, Michael. Rev. of The Most Unfailing Herald: Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1992, ed. Alan M. Weinberg and Romaine Hill. KSJ 47 (1998): 188-89.

O'Quinn, Daniel. Rev. of Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780-1834, ed. Sonia Hofkosh and Alan Richardson. RoN 11 (Aug. 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

--P, Q, R--

Paxman, David. Rev. of Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature, ed. David Philip Miller and Peter Hanns Reill. Eighteenth Century Studies 32:1 (Fall 1998): 120-22.

Reviews a volume with sixteen essays on eighteenth-century voyages, natural history, and botanical illustration with a noteworthy essay by Barbara Stafford on "Images of Ambiguity: Eighteenth Century Microscopy and the Neither/Nor" (121). Other essays discuss the career of Sir Joseph Banks, Linnaeus' botanical science, conventions of graphic representation, and scientific travel.

Perry, Seamus. Rev. of Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism, by Susan Wolfson. EIC 48.4 (Oct. 1998): 384-91.

"This learned book discusses in six chapters the six canonical Romantic poets--Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge." It aims for "an historically informed formalist criticism" and is "a pleasure to read."

Perry, Seamus. Rev. of On the Lake Poets, by Francis Jeffrey; Fair Copy Manuscripts of Shelley's Poems in European American Libraries; The Complete Poems, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 1798-The Year of the Lyrical Ballads, ed. Richard Cronin; The Romantics: England in a Revolutionary Age, by E. P. Thompson; and Thomas Poole and His Friends, by Elizabeth Sandford. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 3.

Pinch, Adela. Rev. of Gender, Genre, and the Romantic Poets: An Introduction, by Philip Cox. Eighteenth-Century Studies 31.4 (Summer 1998): 545-47.

Cox's examination of key texts by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Byron "demonstrates the value of genre as a critical concept in poststructuralist feminist interpretation. Extremely clearly written yet relatively sophisticated in its presentation, especially of its theoretical sources, his account would be of use to teachers attempting to get students to take genre and gender seriously."

Pinsker, Sanford. Rev. of Byron: The Flawed Angel, by Phyllis Grosskurth. Georgia Review 52.2 (Summer 1998): 362-74.

Grosskurth views Byron as "the first modern celebrity." What she probes is not so much the poetry that Byron wrote as the question of why he so desperately needed public acceptance and love. "Although flawed, this is as good a one-volume introduction to what possibly made Byron tick as any other."

Pratt, Lynda. Rev. of Robert Southey: A Life, by Mark Storey. BJ 26 (1998): 126-27.

Presley, Denyse Lyon. Rev. of Maurice, or, The Fisher's Cot, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Times Educational Supplement 4291 (Sept. 25, 1998): D12.

Prickett, Stephen. Rev. of Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination, by Frederick Burwick. MP 96.1 (Aug. 1998): 112-15.

"Scholars will treasure this book not for the absent thesis but rather for the wealth of illustrative detail, the illuminating asides, and the rarely trodden byways of comparative literature" (115). Burwick discusses Coleridge and De Quincey in his first section; Goethe, the French philosopher, Shelley, and Blake in his second section ("Narratives of Madness"); and Friedrich Hölderlin, Gérard de Nerval, and John Clare in his third and final section.

Quinney, Laura. Rev. of Romantic Identities: Varieties of Subjectivity, 1774-1830, by Andrea K. Henderson. KSJ 47 (1998): 211-13.

Rawes, Alan. Rev. of Reconstructing Romanticism: Organic Theory Revisited, by Q. S. Tong, and John Keats and the Loss of Innocence, by Keith D. White. BJ 26 (1998): 137.

Rees, Michael. Rev. of Lady Byron and Earl Shilton, by David Herbert, and Newstead Abbey: A Portrait in Old Picture Postcards, by Philip Jones and Michael Riley. BJ 26 (1998): 119-20.

Roberts, Adam. Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. KSR 12 (1998) 150-54.

"Motion has synthesised a tremendous amount of material, and he presents it elegantly, sometimes vividly" (151).

Roberts, Ruth. Rev. of Origins of Narrative: The Romantic Appropriation of the Bible, by Stephen Prickett. MP 96.2 (Nov. 1998): 269-72.

Rochman, Hazel. Rev. of Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Booklist 95.1 (Sept. 1, 1998): 111.

Roe, Nicholas. Rev. of The Examiner, 1813-1817, intro. Yasuo Deguchi, 5 vol. BJ 26 (1998): 130-32.

Rogers, Helen. Rev. of Print Politics: The Press and Radical Opposition in Early Nineteenth-Century England, by Kevin Gilmartin. NCL 53.3 (Dec. 1998): 396-99.

"Print Politics offers a perceptive and sustained analysis of the rhetorical practices of the radical press, but for me it begs important questions about the relationships between radical, plebeian, and Romantic cultures and of how literary historians might contribute to a field long ploughed by historians. . . . As a historian, I urge him and other contributors to the 'plebeian school' to bring the study of radicalism and Romanticism together rather than to make either the footnote of the other" (396).

Rogers, Michael. Rev. of Valperga, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. LJ 123.18 (Nov. 1, 1998): 130.

Rossington, Michael. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe, and Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840, by Iain McCalman. BJ 26 (1998): 140-41.

Rubin, Merle. "Politics Doesn't Rhyme in New Keats Biography." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 4, 1998, 14.

Rubin, Merle. "Scanning a Poet for Adventure: A New Biographer Claims Wordsworth Was a Counterrevolutionary Spy." Rev. of The Hidden Wordsworth: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy, by Kenneth R. Johnston. Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1998, B9.

Rutenberg, D. Rev. of The Visual and Verbal Sketch in British Romanticism, by Richard C. Sha. Choice 35.10 (June 1998): 1693.

Ryan, Robert M. Rev. of Origins of Narrative: The Romantic Appropriation of the Bible, by Stephen Prickett. ERR 9.1 (Winter 1998): 134-37.

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Scialabba, George. "A Man Who Had Art, Love, Friends--and Bad Luck." Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. Boston Globe, Feb. 8, 1998, G3.

Scott, Grant. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe. KSJ 47 (1998): 186-87.

Scrivener, Michael. Rev. of The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts, vol. 18: The Homeric Hymns and "Prometheus" Drafts Notebook: Bodleian MS. Shelley adds. e. 12, ed. Nancy Moore Goslee, and The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts, vol. 22: Additional Materials in the Hand of Mary W. Shelley: MSS. Shelley adds. c. 5 and Shelley adds. d. 6, ed. Alan M. Weinberg, 2 vols. KSJ 47 (1998): 192-95.

Seed, David. Rev. of Zofloya, or the Moor, by Charlotte Dacre, ed. Tim Ian Michasiw. BJ 26 (1998): 127-28.

Sheats, Paul D. Rev. of Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism, by Susan J. Wolfson. NCL 53:1 (June 1998): 111-14.

"In its accomplished individual readings, this book exemplifies what may be its most important message: that attention to form enhances our pleasure in poetry as well as our understanding of what poetry, in all its multifarious contexts, 'means.' Formal Charges invites us to put aside inherited stereotypes of 'formalism' on behalf of our own experience of what the criticism here displayed can in fact accomplish" (114).

Stabler, Jane. Rev. of Keats, by Andrew Motion. EIC 48.3 (July 1998): 269-76.

"This biography of Keats forces readers to confront the labor of reproducing a life. Motion's wresting of Keats from his letters and poetry is heavy-handed, and in his desire to out-do all previous commentators he amasses detail, often by including parentheses on the end or in the middle of sentences. Motion's oppressive narrative tendency to be casually right all the time is grievously misplaced when Keats's later poetry is discussed, when, one by one, Keats's poems are checked, registered, and emptied of delight."

Stauffer, Andrew Markey. Rev. of Strange Fits of Passion: Epistemologies of Emotion, Hume to Austen, by Adela Pinch. Criticism 40.4 (Fall 1998): 634-37.

Stillinger, Jack. Rev. of John Clare: Poems of the Middle Period, 1822-1837, ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell, and P. M. S. Dawson, 2 vols. KSJ 47 (1998): 201-2.

Stone, Donald, Jr. Rev. of Byron: The Flawed Angel, by Phyllis Grosskurth. Sewanee Review 106.3 (Summer 1998): lxiv-lxvi.

This biography of Byron aims at demystifying its subject. Grosskurth tries to show "the Byron who was known by those closest to him," including his wife and his sister. "Although a competent analysis, there is no Byronic fire in this study, nor is there any Byronic wit."

Strickland, Margot. Rev. of Lord Melbourne, 1779-1848, by L. G. Mitchell. BJ 26 (1998): 122-23.

Strickland, Margot. Rev. of The End of an English Royal Marriage: George IV and the Trail of Queen Caroline for Adulterous Intercourse: An Exhibition from the Collections of William H. Helfand and Jack Gumpert Wasserman. BJ 26 (1998): 123.

Sussman, Herbert. Rev. of Byron and the Victorians, by Andrew Elfenbein. MP 95.4 (May 1998): 556-59.

Elfenbein "effectively employs new materialist models to provide a fresh perspective on the intense posthumous influence of Byron among the Victorians. By concentrating on Byron the celebrity rather than Byron the person, he provides an illuminating account of the Victorian constructions of Byron/Byronism."

Sweet, Nanora. Rev. of Romantic Women Writers: Voices and Countervoices, ed. Paula R. Feldman and Theresa M. Kelley. KSJ 47 (1998): 204-6.

Swingle, L. J. Rev. of Literary Power and the Criteria of Truth, by Laura Quinney. SIR 37:1 (Spring 1998): 108-11.

Taylor, Robert. "Illuminating Byron's Action, Despair in Greece." Rev. of On a Voiceless Shore: Byron in Greece, by Stephen Minta. Boston Globe, Jan. 7, 1998, D3.

Teachout, Terry. Rev. of The Cowboy and the Dandy: Crossing Over from Romanticism to Rock and Roll, by Perry Meisel. New York Times, Dec. 13, 1998, 24.

"Meisel's sludgy style will come as no surprise to those masochists who keep up with high academic fashion. Small wonder that the fruits of contemporary scholarship in the humanities are so widely viewed with contemptuous incomprehension by nonscholarly critics and the common reader, since the members of the professoriate are so reluctant to translate their ideas into the plain English of the public intellectual." The book contains "unexpectedly shrewd comments" on Muddy Waters and Willa Cather.

Trott, Nicola. Rev. of John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, by Nicholas Roe. RoN 10 (May 1998): <http://www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/>.

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Vance, Norman. Rev. of The Romantic Reformation: Religious Politics in English Literature 1789-1824, by Robert M. Ryan. KSR 12 (1998): 165-67.

Ryan relies too much on "the eccentric and controversially good-hearted religious liberalism of Rev. F. D. Maurice"; like Maurice, "he is perhaps too easily disposed to confuse the rhetorical intensities achieved by the manipulation of culturally sanctioned religious vocabulary with positive religious statement or intervention in religious debate" (166). Ryan follows J. C. D. Clark's belief that religion "is the key to the perceived strangeness of pre-Reform-Bill English politics" (166). "One cannot seriously argue that people suddenly began to notice and to complain about the Test Acts only with the publication of Songs of Innocence or The Lyrical Ballads" (166). Vance unaccountably laments the absence of Southey, Coleridge, Moore, and Hazlitt from this study while also complaining that "the range of writers discussed is . . . too English" (167).

Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer. Rev. of Formal Charges: The Shaping of Poetry in British Romanticism, by Susan J. Wolfson. KSJ 47 (1998): 213-15.

Wasserman, Jack Gumpert. Rev. of Byron: The Flawed Angel, by Phyllis Grosskurth. KSJ 47 (1998): 197-99.

Watson, Margaret. Rev. of The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts: Facsimile Editions with Full Transcriptions and Scholarly Apparatus, vol. 22: Additional Materials in the Hand of Mary W. Shelley, ed. Alan M. Weinberg. N&Q 45.3 (Sept. 1998): 391-92.

Weisman, Karen. Rev. of Fantastic Modernity: Dialectical Readings in Romanticism and Theory, by Orrin N. C. Wang. MP 96.1 (Aug. 1998): 115-17.

Wang reads Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" as an "obsessive meditation on history, one which establishes a metacritique of its speaker's modernity," pairing Keats with Frederic Jameson's "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in order to show how both reveal a "conflicted self-reflexivity." Wang reads Paul De Man's "The Rhetoric of Temporality" with The Triumph of Life, McGann's The Romantic Ideology with Heine's reading of Uhland, feminist romantic studies with Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Harold Bloom with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Wang's dialectical pairings are "for the most part . . . illuminating and worthwhile" (116).

Winters, L. Rev. of "Who Lived at Alfoxton?": Virginia Woolf and English Romanticism, by Ellen Tremper. Choice 36.1 (Sept. 1998): 134.

Womersley, David. Rev. of Maurice, or, The Fisher's Cot, by Mary Shelley. TLS 4981 (Sept. 18, 1998): 9.

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