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This series provides a high-quality selection of early printings of literary works, textual editions, anthologies and literary criticism which are of lasting scholarly interest. Ranging from Old English to Shakespeare to early twentieth-century work from around the world, these books offer a valuable resource for scholars in reception history, textual editing and literary studies.

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451 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies

Page 4 of 23

The Tatler
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Steele
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    29 January 2015
    First published in:
    1797
  • The appearance of the first issue of The Tatler in 1709 is usually regarded as the beginning of periodical publication in England. Its founder, Richard Steele (1672–1729), intended 'a paper, which should observe upon the manners of the pleasurable, as well as the busy part of mankind … by way of a letter of intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions, and of each sex'. The 'datelines' of the reports, on news, literature, and plain gossip, were from the most famous coffee houses of early Georgian London, and the contributors included Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison. The magazine was published for only two years, from April 1709 to January 1711: shortly afterwards, Steele and Addison co-founded The Spectator. This four-volume edition was issued in 1797 by a consortium of publishers, including John Nichols. Volume 2 contains numbers 51 to 114.

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of our Earlier Poets
  • Volume 1
  • Edited by Thomas Percy
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    29 January 2015
    First published in:
    1765
  • While visiting a friend, the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729–1811) noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. Upon inspection, this manuscript was found to be a seventeenth-century collection of historical ballads. Following this discovery, Percy collected further ballads and songs from a number of sources, which he published in this three-volume work in 1765, although ultimately only a quarter of the texts he presented came from that original manuscript. Although this work proved to be incredibly popular, Percy's idiosyncratic editorial practices also received much criticism. The collection centres on historical ballads and romances, demonstrating the development of language, customs and traditions, to which Percy added contemporary ballads for his readers' enjoyment. Volume 1 contains texts such as 'The Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase' and 'The Jew's Daughter', as well as ballads which influenced or illuminate the work of Shakespeare.

My Recollections of Lord Byron
  • And Those of Eye-Witnesses of his Life
  • Volume 2
  • Teresa Guiccioli
  • Translated by Hubert E. H. Jerningham
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1869
  • This two-volume work was originally published in French, and anonymously, in 1868. In 1869, Richard Bentley published an English translation by Hubert E. H. Jerningham, in which he stated that the work 'is the production of the celebrated Countess Guiccioli'. Teresa Guiccioli (1800–73) was nineteen, and married to a much older man, when she first met Byron in Venice. Their subsequent love affair lasted until Byron left for Greece, together with her brother Pietro Gamba, whose account of Byron's last days is also reissued in this series. Anxious to restore Byron's reputation, which she believed to be tainted by a conflation in the public mind between the poet and his more notorious characters, she attempts to refute some of the more scandalous assertions about his life. Volume 2 continues to describe Byron's qualities: his generosity, courage and modesty, but also his faults, including vanity and misanthropy.

The Tatler
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Steele
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    29 January 2015
    First published in:
    1797
  • The appearance of the first issue of The Tatler in 1709 is usually regarded as the beginning of periodical publication in England. Its founder, Richard Steele (1672–1729), intended 'a paper, which should observe upon the manners of the pleasurable, as well as the busy part of mankind … by way of a letter of intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions, and of each sex'. The 'datelines' of the reports, on news, literature, and plain gossip, were from the most famous coffee houses of early Georgian London, and the contributors included Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison. The magazine was published for only two years, from April 1709 to January 1711: shortly afterwards, Steele and Addison co-founded The Spectator. This four-volume edition was issued in 1797 by a consortium of publishers, including John Nichols. Volume 1 contains the first fifty numbers.

Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore
  • Volume 3
  • Thomas Moore
  • Edited by John Russell
  • Published online:
    05 May 2015
    Print publication:
    28 March 2013
    First published in:
    1853
  • Throughout his professional life, the poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was variously celebrated and vilified for both his verse and his politics. Born in Dublin, he remained an ardent Irish patriot until his death. This eight-volume collection of Moore's memoirs, diaries and letters, edited by his friend Lord John Russell (1792–1878) and first published between 1853 and 1856, provides rare insights into a man whose genius was applauded by the Morning Chronicle as 'embracing almost all sides of imaginative literature, of criticism and philosophy'. Opening with a portrait of Sir John Stevenson, with whom Moore worked on the successful series Irish Melodies between 1808 and 1834, Volume 3 contains Moore's diary for the period 1819–22. During this time, Moore was effectively exiled to France and Italy, where he developed a close friendship with Lord Byron.

Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men
  • Collected from the Conversation of Mr Pope, and Other Eminent Persons of his Time
  • Joseph Spence
  • Edited by Samuel Weller Singer
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
    First published in:
    1820
  • Joseph Spence (1699–1768) was ordained after graduating from Oxford, and having made the acquaintance of Alexander Pope, was helped by him to the professorship of poetry at Oxford, which he held for ten years from 1728. At the same time (and while holding the living of Birchanger in Essex) he began the first of several extended European journeys, accompanying nobility on the Grand Tour. He had published various literary works before his death in 1768, but left a number of manuscripts to be published at the discretion of his executors. They decided to take no action, but these anecdotes of Alexander Pope and his contemporaries came into the possession of a bookseller called Carpenter, who had them edited, and published them, prefaced with a life of Spence, in 1820. This is a fascinating compilation of anecdotes, aphorisms and biographical details about the most famous poet of his age.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 4
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1812
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. As well as memoirs of writers, Volume 4 also contains essays on the polyglot Bible, and on the rise of newspapers and periodicals.

The Life of Sir John Falstaff
  • With a Biography of the Knight from Authentic Sources
  • Robert Barnabas Brough
  • Illustrated by George Cruikshank
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    27 June 2013
    First published in:
    1858
  • Remembered for both his satirical and serious work, Robert Barnabas Brough (1828–60) was a playwright, journalist, poet and founder member of the Savage Club. Built around a series of inspired etchings by the celebrated artist George Cruikshank (1792–1878), this is a delightful fictional biography, 'from authentic sources', of that most colourful of Shakespeare's characters. We hear how our hero was descended from the great Saxon leader Hundwulf Falstaff, how the name is a corruption of 'False-thief', of his adventures with his beloved Prince Hal, and of Christmas 1412 with the Whittington family. Henry V's terrible rejection of him - 'I know thee not, old man' - is touchingly depicted, as are the episode of the laundry basket and other misadventures at Windsor, along with his sad death at the Boar's Head in 1415. First published in 1858, this book is a must-read for every lover of this larger-than-life figure.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 9
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    05 January 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1815
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 9 contains anecdotes of Erasmus Darwin and John Wilkes, among many others, with additional material on the subjects of the earlier volumes.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 6
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    05 January 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1812
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 6 includes essays on the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding and the Society of Antiquaries, as well as many individual memoirs.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 5
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    05 January 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1812
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 5 includes memoirs of John and Charles Wesley, and of antiquaries such as William Stukeley, as well as an essay on lexicography.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 7
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    05 January 2015
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1813
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 7 contains an index to and corrections for all the preceding volumes, as well as a list of subscribers.

Familiar Studies of Men and Books
  • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    17 July 2014
    First published in:
    1882
  • This collection of literary essays by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) explores the lives and works of nine writers from around the world and across the centuries, including Victor Hugo, Robert Burns, Walt Whitman and Samuel Pepys. Published together in 1882, the studies here had previously appeared in periodicals, chiefly the Cornhill Magazine, and are known for their conversational style and unusual combination of character assessment and scholarly critique. In his preface, Stevenson describes the book as 'the readings of a literary vagrant', emphasising that the essays were inspired by a genuine personal interest in the authors and their works. Over the course of his own career as a writer, Stevenson published in a wide range of literary forms and genres. Today this collection reveals much about the diversity of his influences and tastes, as well as offering an insight into his moral and aesthetic values.

The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld
  • With a Memoir
  • Volume 2
  • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
  • Edited by Lucy Aikin
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    24 April 2014
    First published in:
    1825
  • The writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) was famous for her poems and essays, her writings for children (she and her husband ran a school), and for her edition of the correspondence of Samuel Richardson (also reissued in this series). The sister of John Aikin, the physician and writer, she moved in the dissenting circle of the Warrington Academy, where her father was a teacher: Joseph Priestley was a close friend. This two-volume edition of some of her poems and prose works was compiled by her niece Lucy Aikin (also a writer), and published soon after her death in 1825. The wit, elegance and deep feeling of Barbauld's works led to her being regarded as one of the most important writers of the early Romantic period. Volume 2 contains a selection of Barbauld's letters, and essays on a variety of topics, from literature to politics.

The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld
  • With a Memoir
  • Volume 1
  • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
  • Edited by Lucy Aikin
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    24 April 2014
    First published in:
    1825
  • The writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) was famous for her poems and essays, her writings for children (she and her husband ran a school), and for her edition of the correspondence of Samuel Richardson (also reissued in this series). The sister of John Aikin, the physician and writer, she moved in the dissenting circle of the Warrington Academy, where her father was a teacher: Joseph Priestley was a close friend. This two-volume edition of some of her poems and prose works was compiled by her niece Lucy Aikin (also a writer), and published soon after her death in 1825. The wit, elegance and deep feeling of Barbauld's works led to her being regarded as one of the most important writers of the early Romantic period. Volume 1 contains a short biography and a selection of poems in many genres, including a comic description of Priestley's study.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 2
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1812
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 2 includes memoirs of Richard Farmer and George Steevens, and a history of Bowyer's press from 1732 to 1765.

Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters of the Late Lucy Aikin
  • Including Those Addressed to the Rev. Dr Channing from 1826 to 1842
  • Lucy Aikin
  • Edited by P. H. Le Breton
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    17 July 2014
    First published in:
    1864
  • The writer Lucy Aikin (1781–1864) was the daughter of the physician and author John Aikin and the niece of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, whose works she edited after Barbauld's death in 1825. Given this literary background, it is not surprising that Lucy should have begun to write: her early works were poems, but she is best known for her two-volume Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1818), also reissued in this series. This 1864 work, edited by her niece's husband, contains a memoir of Aikin, a collection of her essays, and letters in which she expresses frequently humorous and often trenchant opinions on the literary and social topics of the day, such as the influence of wider knowledge of the German language on English writing, or the morally elevating effect of the British Museum. It will be appreciated by those interested in early nineteenth-century literature and women's writing.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 1
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1812
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. As well as individual short biographies, Volume 1 contains a history of Bowyer's press from 1699 to 1731.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century
  • Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A., and Many of his Learned Friends
  • Volume 8
  • John Nichols
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    28 August 2014
    First published in:
    1814
  • In this nine-volume work, published between 1812 and 1815, the author and publisher John Nichols (1745–1826) provides biographical notes on publishers, writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and also gives 'an incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century'. (A shorter version had been published in 1782.) His subjects range from the publisher William Bowyer to Henry Fielding and Horace Walpole, and also include histories of individual publishing houses and of genres such as lexicography. The work remains a useful source of biographical material on authors and publishers at a period when many of the literary genres we take for granted, such as the novel, the autobiography and the analytical history, were first being developed. Volume 8 contains anecdotes of the ex-slave Ignatius Sancho, the botanist William Curtis and the antiquarian Samuel Pegge, among many others.

The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele
  • Including his Familiar Letters to his Wife and Daughters, to Which Are Prefixed, Fragments of Three Plays, Two of Them Undoubtedly Steele's, the Third Supposed to Be Addison's
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Steele
  • Edited by John Nichols
  • Published online:
    18 December 2014
    Print publication:
    22 May 2014
    First published in:
    1809
  • Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729), soldier, courtier and dramatist, is best remembered for his founding of two literary and political periodicals, the Tatler and the Spectator (the latter jointly with his friend Joseph Addison). These two volumes of his letters to friends and family were compiled by the publisher John Nichols and published in 1809. Nichols claims in his preface that these letters, 'some of them evidently scribbled when their amiable Author was probably not in the very best condition for penmanship', are nonetheless of great interest, 'as they contain the private and undisguised opinions of the man who took upon himself to be the Censor of the age'. Volume 2 contains letters to his wife and daughters, and to literary and political figures of his day, including Sir Robert Walpole, Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, the duke of Newcastle, and the theatre managers Cibber and Booth.

Page 4 of 23