Vanity Fair and the Celestial City: Dissenting, Methodist, and Evangelical Literary Culture in England 1720-1800 - Hardcover

Rivers, Isabel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019826996X ISBN 13: 9780198269960

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2018

Synopsis

In John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, the pilgrims cannot reach the Celestial City without passing through Vanity Fair, where everything is bought and sold. In recent years there has been much analysis of commerce and consumption in Britain during the long eighteenth century, and of the dramatic expansion of popular publishing. Similarly, much has been written on the extraordinary effects of the evangelical revivals of the eighteenth century in Britain, Europe, and North America. But how did popular religious culture and the world of print interact? It is now known that religious works formed the greater part of the publishing market for most of the century. What religious books were read, and how? Who chose them? How did they get into people's hands?

Vanity Fair and the Celestial City is the first book to answer these questions in detail. It explores the works written, edited, abridged, and promoted by evangelical dissenters, Methodists both Arminian and Calvinist, and Church of England evangelicals in the period 1720 to 1800. Isabel Rivers also looks back to earlier sources and forward to the continued republication of many of these works well into the nineteenth century. The first part is concerned with the publishing and distribution of religious books by commercial booksellers and not-for-profit religious societies, and the means by which readers obtained them and how they responded to what they read. The second part shows that some of the most important publications were new versions of earlier nonconformist, episcopalian, Roman Catholic, and North American works. The third part explores the main literary kinds, including annotated bibles, devotional guides, exemplary lives, and hymns. Building on many years' research into the religious literature of the period, Rivers discusses over two hundred writers and provides detailed case studies of popular and influential works.

About this title

About the Author

Isabel Rivers is Professor of Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture at Queen Mary University of London. Her main interests are in the relations between literature, religion, philosophy, and the history of the book in the long eighteenth century, and she has published widely on these subjects. She directs the Dissenting Academies Project hosted by the Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English.

Review

"This is an absorbing read and I enjoyed it greatly. I recommend it to all those interested in these questions. Reading the works studied here occupied our predecessors and helped to shape the world in which they kept and taught their faith. We should know more of how they came to understand the Christian gospel and how they acted on that understanding." -- Alan Argent, Congregational History Society Magazine

"This book is a phenomenal work of scholarship. Its extraordinary originality and thoroughness reveal the abundant wealth of almost half a century's research. A conspicuous excellence of this scholarly book is its functional clarity of style and presentation." -- Robin Schofield, Literature and Theology

"This magnificent study must surely be required reading for everyone interested in 18th-century religious literature and history. Moreover, it contains much that the student of 19th-century religious culture will find highly significant." -- Literature and Theology

"Vanity Fair and the Celestial City will appeal to literary critics, church historians, and those interested in the nature, creation, and importance of devotional texts and their use in other contexts. In addition, Rivers provides valuable insights within her footnotes." -- Tom Schwanda, Associate Professor of Christian Formation and Ministry at Wheaton College, Reading Religion

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 019826996X
• ISBN 13: 9780198269960
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 476