British Romanticism and Prison Reform

JONAS COPE is an associate professor of English at California State University, Sacramento. He is the author of The Dissolution of Character in Late Romanticism, 1820–1839.

• List of AbbreviationsIntroduction1          Solitary Confinement: “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison”2          William Godwin, “Mild Coercion,” and the Happy Prison Tradition3          The Descent of Liberty: Leigh Hunt in Surrey Gaol4          Keats, Byron, and the Idea of Transformative Confinement5          John Clare: The Romantic Ascent6          Jane Austen and Penitential SpaceCodaAcknowledgmentsBibliographyIndex

“Jonas Cope’s critically acute and splendidly revelatory study traces-through a wealth of interrelated philosophical, religious, legal, literary, visual, and theoretical sources-the complex course of Romantic-era British penal reform: its origins, evolution, and afterlives in post-Romantic public culture. A must-read.” - Stephen Behrendt (author of British Women Poets and the Romantic Writing Community) “Consistently strong readings of seven major authors in the compelling and well-defined context of Romantic-era prison reform.” - Noah Heringman (author of Deep Time: A Literary History)