I'm pleased to tell BARS List Members that my first monograph, The Literary
Protégées of the Lake Poets, has just been published as part of Ashgate's
Nineteenth Century Series.
Parts of it arose out of various BARS conference papers I've given over the
last few years, so I just wanted to take this opportunity say a quick thank
you, to all the BARS members I've met, for their kind encouragement and
continued support.
All best,
Dennis
NEW PUBLICATION
The Literary Protégées of the Lake Poets (Ashgate, 2006)
Dennis Low, Independent Scholar
210 pages. ISBN 0 7546 5595 4. £50.00 / $99.95
Description
Dennis Low's re-evaluation of the Lake Poets as mentors begins with the
controversial premise that Robert Southey was one of the
nineteenth-century's greatest champions of women's writing. Together with
Wordsworth and Coleridge, Low argues, Southey tried to end what he perceived
to be the cultural decline of literature by nurturing the creative talents
of many exceptional women writers.
Drawing on 3,000 unpublished manuscripts in England, Scotland and the United
States, Low examines the lives and works of four of the Lake Poets' literary
protégées: Caroline Bowles, Maria Gowen Brooks, Sara Coleridge and Maria
Jane Jewsbury. Though diverse in terms of their literary production, these
women were united in their defiant efforts to write against an increasingly
stagnant cultural milieu and their negotiation, wholeheartedly encouraged by
their mentors, of contemporary publishing mores. This scrupulously
researched book is a valuable contribution to the study of little-known
women writers and to our understanding of the literary and publishing
environment of Britain in the 1820s and 1830s.
Reviews
'Dennis Low's admirably lucid and intelligent book gives us a thoughtful,
frequently illuminating study of what often has been viewed as a gap in the
production of major English literature during the twenty or so years after
the deaths of Keats, Shelley and Byron. Focusing on four women—Caroline
Bowles, Maria Gowen Brooks, Sara Coleridge and Maria Jane Jewsbury—and the
ways in which they were encouraged and advised by, variously, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Southey, this interesting work adds valuably to the study of
neglected but significant women poets and their literary relationships. Low
deserves an appreciative audience.' (Paul Betz, Professor of English,
Georgetown University)
Contents
Introduction; The lake poets and the era of accomplished women; Caroline
Bowles; Maria Gowen Brooks; Sara Coleridge; Maria Jane Jewsbury; Conclusion;
Bibliography; Index.
Further information
www.ashgate.com (including 15% discount for on-line orders)
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Dr Sharon Ruston
School of Humanities
Keele University
Staffordshire
ST5 5BG
Tel: 01782 584576
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/en/staff/ruston.htm
Email: [log in to unmask]
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