Overview

Examines the place of media technology in the literary and intellectual history of Romantic-era Britain Explores the literary figuration of media technology and its use Offers a fresh reading of Godwin's corpus, which involves an unusual claim about its fundamental consistency across time and generic boundaries Examines major controversies of the period, including: the physiology of the mind; the ethics of novel-reading; practical reading advice; the nature of truth; the nature of afterlife Draws attention to the enormous impact of protestant dissent on the literature and philosophy of the Romantic period Godwin and the Book explores a network of controversies concerning the relationship of media form to social futurity in Romantic-period Britain through the writing of the notorious philosopher-novelist William Godwin (1756 1836). It offers a fresh reading of Godwin's fifty-year corpus, using evidence from his fiction, philosophy and essays to argue that, throughout his career, he figured books and reading in particular ways in order to defend a set of inherited beliefs about intellectual perfectibility. In the process, it highlights many wider debates that marked out the culture of this period including disagreements over the physiology of the mind, the ethics of novel-reading, and the social consequences of death and considers how these debates were intertwined with the formal development of British prose in the period.

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9781474475778

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Reviews

"""Louise McCray's new study offers a fresh and compelling perspective on one of the central figures of British Romanticism. Godwin and the Book achieves a remarkably successful synthesis of the philosophical, political, literary, and religious concerns that animated Godwin's long and eclectic career. Students and scholars in wide range of disciplines will be stimulated and challenged by its arguments."" -Philip Connell, University of Cambridge"

Author Information

J. Louise McCray received her PhD from the University of Edinburgh where she was a tutor in English Literature. Her publications include 'Novel-Reading, Ethics, and William Godwin in the 1830s', in Studies in Romanticism and ''Peril in the means of its diffusion': William Godwin on Truth and Social Media', article forthcoming in the Journal of the History of Ideas (both in press).

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