Blackwood's Magazine,1817-25 by Nicholas Mason (9781851968008)

Description - Blackwood's Magazine,1817-25 by Nicholas Mason

Academic - Romantic Literature - Romantic Studies - History - History Of Journalism For scholars studying the latter half of Britain's Romantic period, Blackwood's Magazine seemingly surfaces at every turn. Most infamously, the staunchly conservative, Edinburgh-based monthly served as the most trenchant critic of the 'Cockney School,' gleefully baiting the members of Leigh Hunt's circle and (at least in popular legend) collaborating with the Quarterly Review to send Keats to an early grave. Nearly as significantly, 'Maga' (as Blackwood's was widely known) was an early appreciator of Percy and Mary Shelley, a sometimes champion of the middle-aged Wordsworth and Coleridge, and a shrewd commentator on the 'Byromania' that swept Europe. Blackwood's also served as an influential advocate for Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon and a bridge between the gothic fiction of Ann Radcliffe and Edgar Allen Poe.
The impact the early volumes of Blackwood's had on the literary imagination of the next generation is suggested in both Poe's writing and the juvenilia of the Bronte sisters, where we see the young Emily dreaming of an island ruled by 'Johnny Lockhart' (the magazine's most regular contributor), while her sister Charlotte voices a decided preference for Christopher North (Maga's fictional editor). This is the first scholarly edition of Blackwood's Magazine. This six-volume series will collect, contextualise, and annotate the most influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts appearing in Blackwood's Magazine between 1817 and 1825. This range of dates represents Maga's infancy, when it rapidly established itself as the nation's most outspoken voice for conservative causes and the leading antagonist of all things Whig. While a wide variety of important literary figures contributed to the magazine's rise, its character was largely shaped by three men: John Wilson, John Gibson Lockhart, and William Maginn. Working collaboratively, they invented many of the fictional and semi-fictional figures (e.g.
Odoherty, Timothy Tickler, Christopher North) who became synonymous with Blackwood's Magazine. This partnership lasted eight years, coming to a close in 1825, when Lockhart assumed the editorship of the Quarterly Review. From this point forward, Maga became increasingly conventional and less devoted to the sort of journalistic hijinks for which it had become famous. The year 1825, then, marks a natural end date for a scholarly edition covering the early years of Blackwood's. This collection will be useful for scholars interested in early-nineteenth-century British literature and culture and texts have been chosen for their usefulness in researching and teaching British Romanticism. Byronists, for instance, will be able to readily locate dozens of obscure reviews, satires, and commentaries on the poet by simply consulting the edition's index. Scholars working on the Lake Poets, the Cockney School, women writers, labourer poets, the gothic, and a variety of other subjects will likewise benefit.
Many of the texts relate to the "major" Romantic poets, however, this collection also provides a significant sampling of entries on women's writing, the Romantic-era novel, and the leading political and social concerns of the day. While this series will be of particular interest to Romanticists it will also be a valuable resource for cultural and political historians, scholars of media and print history, and specialists in Scottish, Irish, Continental, and early-American literature (all of which are discussed at length in the early issues).

Buy Blackwood's Magazine,1817-25 by Nicholas Mason from Australia's Online Independent Bookstore, BooksDirect.