This 2004 volume offers an introduction to British literature that challenges the traditional divide between eighteenth-century and Romantic studies. The volume focuses on broad themes including taste and aesthetics and pays close attention to the work of individual writers including Sterne, Blake, Barbauld and Austen. List of illustrations vii List of contributors viii Preface xi Part I Contexts and modes Readers, writers, reviewers, and the professionalization of literature 3(21) Barbara M. Benedict Criticism, taste, aesthetics 24(19) Simon Jarvis Literature and politics 43(18) Michael Scrivener Literature, national identity, and empire 61(19) Saree Makdisi Sensibility 80(20) Susan Manning Theatrical culture 100(19) Gillian Russell Gothic 119(20) James Watt Part II Writers, circles, traditions Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Sarah Fielding 139(18) Peter Sabor Johnson, Boswell, and their circle 157(16) Murray Pittock Sterne and Romantic autobiography 173(21) Thomas Keymer Blake and the poetics of enthusiasm 194(17) Jon Mee `Unsex'd females': Barbauld, Robinson, and Smith 211(16) Judith Pascoe The Lake School: Wordsworth and Coleridge 227(17) Paul Magnuson Jane Austen and the invention of the serious modern novel 244(19) Kathryn Sutherland Keats, Shelley, Byron, and the Hunt Circle 263(17) Greg Kucich John Clare and the traditions of labouring-class verse 280(16) John Goodridge Bridget Keegan Index 296