Imlay’s delightful epistolary adventure of 1793, set on the American frontier, was one of the first American novels. The trials of an emigrant family in the Ohio River Valley of Kentucky contrast the decadence of Europe with the utopian promise of the American West. Its sensational love plots also dramatize the novel’s surprising feminist allegiances.

First published in 1799, George Walker’s The Vagabond was an immediate popular success. Offering a vitriolic critique of post-Bastille Jacobinism and sansculotte-style mob rule, its true-to-life satirical portraits of many of the radical men and women who fought in the forefront of the "British Revolution" are nonetheless full of playful banter and farce. With swipes at Hume, Rousseau, Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Paine; the French Revolution; and the ideas of the noble savage, natural virtue, liberty, equality, and romantic primitivism, The Vagabond offers a unique cross-section of 1790s radicalism. This Broadview edition contains a critical introduction and a wide selection of primary source materials that situate the novel in the context of the revolutionary debate of the 1790s. Appendices include contemporary reviews of the novel and excerpts from the writings of a variety of radicals and reactionaries engaged in the debate, such as Hume, Rousseau, Paine, Thelwall, Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Burke, Playfair, Malthus, and Cobbett, among many others.

A biography of the American Gilbert Imlay (c 1754 - c 1828), revolutionary war veteran - and infamous lover of Mary Wollstonecraft. It also highlights how Imlay unwittingly acted as an intermediary between figures of greater significance, whose ideas, ambitions and schemes he frequently borrowed and disseminated across the Atlantic and continents.

When Anglo-Americans looked west after the Revolution, they hoped to see a blank slate upon which to build their continental republic. However, French settlers had inhabited the territory stretching from Ohio to Oregon for over a century, blending into Na

Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

This first book-length study explores the history of postwar England during the end of empire through a reading of novels which appeared at the time, moving from George Orwell and William Golding to Penelope Lively, Alan Hollinghurst and Ian McEwan. Particular genres are also discussed, including the family saga, travel writing, detective fiction and popular romances.All included reflect on the predicament of an England which no longer lies at the centre of imperial power, arriving at a fascinating diversity of conclusions about the meaning and consequences of the end of empire and the priveleged location of the novel for discussing what decolonization meant for the domestic English population of the metropole. The book is written in an easy style, unburdened by large sections of abstract reflection. It endeavours to bring alive in a new way the traditions of the English novel.

This volume contains the three lectures R. W. G. Vail delivered in the fall of 1945, in connection with his A. S. Rosenbach Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, supplemented by descriptions of 1300 bibliographical items covering the North American frontier literature over the period 1542 to 1800.