"We knew Romantic readers loved travel writing and were fascinated with North America; Jarvis's study gives us a window into how those readers - private individuals, reviewers, and Romantic poets - read the era's massive output of books on travel and exploration. His approach combines impressive research with insights from reader response theory and book history. Romantic Readers and Transatlantic Travel is an important contribution to studies of transatlantic Romanticism." - Elizabeth A. Bohls, University of Oregon, USA "With careful attention to various source materials including autobiography entries, marginalia, letters, diaries, and periodical reviews, Jarvis defines the readers of travel writing, not as passive receptors, but as active responders. He demonstrates that readers of travel writing did not merely regurgitate the imperialist, sexist, and/or racist attitudes of the authors they read, but were, in fact, diverse, opinionated, and discerning. Consequently, Romantic Readers revises the characterization of Romantic-era readers of travel writing, and broadens transatlantic Romanticism to include new histories of reading."- Nineteenth-Century Studies "Romantic Readers and Transatlantic Travel is a most welcome contribution to the critical discourse of transatlantic Romanticism, reader-response theory and the history of the book. Throughout this scholarly monograph Jarvis’s writing is refreshingly lucid, engaging, forthright and uncluttered by jargon."- Literature and History "Jarvis's study is not only valuable in that it provides a unique investigation of individual responses to travel literature, but because the methodology and the results raise important questions about how we come to understand the role of reading and writing, print and publishing in the formation of identity and community."- Romanticism "Jarvis’s work excels by highlighting an area of criticism that necessitates further exploration. (...) Ultimately, Romantic Readers demonstrates that in examining reader responses to travel literature, critics can begin to craft a transnational history of reading in the Romantic era."- Taylor Murphy, Florida State University, USA
