This thorough introduction to English literature of the eighteenth century opens with an introduction to the principal texts followed by an explanation of key terms in their political, economic and social contexts. Each of the main chapters on poetry, prose fiction, theatre and `culture of print' tells a story of literary evolution, interrogating extracts from key canonical texts whilst allowing space for a discussion of lesserknown contextual texts and intellectual currents.
Author Biography
Hamish Mathison is Lecturer in English at the University of Sheffield. He is the author of published articles, a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, editor, with Angela Wright, of Instruments of Enlightenment, a special issue of History of European Ideas (Elsevier, 2004), and literature reviews editor for the British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies.
