Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives

Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives is the first collection of essays on poet and public intellectual Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825). By international scholars of eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature, these new essays survey Barbauld’s writing from early to late: her versatility as a stylist, her poetry, her books for children, her political writing, her performance as editor and reviewer. They explore themes of sociability, materiality, and affect in Barbauld’s writing, and trace her reception and influence. Rooted in enlightenment philosophy and ethics and dissenting religion, Barbauld’s work exerted a huge impact on the generation of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and on education and ideas about childhood far into the nineteenth century. William McCarthy’s introduction explores the importance of Barbauld’s work today, and co-editor Olivia Murphy assesses the commentary on Barbauld that followed her rediscovery in the early 1990s. Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives is the indispensible introduction to Barbauld’s work and current thinking about it.

RACHEL TRETHEWEY has a degree in History from Oxford University, and a PhD in English from Exeter University. At Oxford, she won the Philip Geddes Prize for student journalism. During her subsequent journalist career she wrote features for the Daily Mail and Daily Express and reviewed historical books and biographies for the Independent. The Churchill Sisters is her fourth book.