Anna Letitia Barbauld

Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives is the first collection of essays on poet and public intellectual Anna Letitia Barbauld (17431825). By international scholars of eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature, these new essays survey Barbaulds 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 Barbaulds writing, and trace her reception and influence. Rooted in enlightenment philosophy and ethics and dissenting religion, Barbaulds 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 McCarthys introduction explores the importance of Barbaulds 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 Barbaulds work and current thinking about it.