Mike Sanders is a Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Theory at the University of Manchester.

• Introduction; 1. The Chartist imaginary: 'talking by turns of politics and poetry'; 2. Chartist poetry and literary history; 3. 'A jackass load of poetry': The Northern Star's poetry column 1838–52; 4. Insurrectionary sonnets: the ideological afterlife of the Newport uprising; 5. 'Merry England': memory and nostalgia in the year of the mass strike; 6. 'The future-hastening storm': Chartist poetry in 1848; 7. Constellating Chartist poetry: Gerald Massey, Walter Benjamin and the uses of messianism; Appendix A: three Chartist poems; Appendix B: details of poetry published in the poetry column of the Northern Star.

Review of the hardback: 'Mike Sanders has produced an important study of the Northern Star's poetry column with a complete list of all the poems published. … This volume must now be recognised as the leading study of Chartist poetry available to historians. Its subtle linkage of literature, aesthetics and history provides a clear contextual setting for examining the written word and makes one realise why Plato contended that poetry could be harmful.' The Historical Association