Literary History Writing, 1770-1820

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • April London

      Pages 1-8

3. Writing and Rewriting Lives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-11

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   2. Writing Lives

      • April London

      Pages 13-26

   3. Rewriting Lives: Revolution, Reaction, and Apostasy

      • April London

      Pages 27-46

4. Literary History and Books

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 47-47

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   2. Bibliomania and Antiquarianism

      • April London

      Pages 49-58

   3. Literary History and Literary Specimens

      • April London

      Pages 59-80

5. Isaac D’Israeli and Literary History

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-83

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   2. Apostasy and Exclusion

      • April London

      Pages 85-96

   3. The Structures of Opinion

      • April London

      Pages 97-110

6. The Genres of Literary History

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 111-112

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   2. The “whole mind of the nation”

      • April London

      Pages 113-133

   3. Literary History, Periodicals, Lectures

      • April London

      Pages 134-156

7. Conclusion

   1. Conclusion

      • April London

      Pages 157-160

8. Back Matter

   Pages 161-225

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This investigation of literary history writing between 1770 and 1820 identifies the mode's distinction from canon formation as central to its cultural vitality. Using secret history, memoir and the novel, amongst other sources, it invites a re-thinking of literary history's place in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century print culture.

• culture
• history of literature
• novel
• structure
• British and Irish Literature

'...[a] wide-ranging, thoroughly researched study....[and] a panoramic exploration of an emergent genre that became instrumental to the teaching of English literature.' - Max Fincher, TLS

'...an impressive and long overdue 'history of literary history' from 1770-1820. Combining the intricacies of close reading with the larger historical perspectives of material and book history, it carefully and scrupulously navigates the much-neglected waters of the period's literary history.' - Porscha Fermanis, University College Dublin, British Association for Romantic Studies

'What re-emerges as the result of London's survey is a story of the 'hardening of genre borders' (p. 5) first between history and literature, and eventually between genres within literature and literary studies, which emptied literary history of its radical potential... the force of London's original claim comes from the detailed synopses of arguments that refuse to fit into received notions of the genre's evolution. London's own voice comes through in the arrangement of the voices of the dissenters and it can only enrich our knowledge of what became of literary history in the nineteenth century.' - Tommi Kakko, English Studies

APRIL LONDON is Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of Women and Property in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel (1999).

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