Electronic Editions

Romantic Circles Electronic Editions offers a searchable archive of texts of the Romantic era, enhanced by technology made possible in an online environment. Each edition is based on the highest scholarly standards and is peer-reviewed.

Section Editor: Michele Speitz

August 2011
 The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Two | 1798 to 1803

Robert Southey was one of the best-known, controversial and innovative writers in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Based upon extensive new archival research, this Collected edition makes available for the first time all his surviving letters, freshly edited, annotated and introduced. Part Two covers 1798-1803, a turbulent and crucial time for Southey. It encompasses his public and private responses to Lyrical Ballads (1798); his reaction to the rise of Napoleon and the continuing conflict between Britain and revolutionary France; his second and final visit to Portugal and the resultant hardening of his anti-Catholicism; his unhappy stint as a secretary to the Irish Chancellor Isaac Corry, and his emotional bludgeoning by the deaths in relentless succession between 1801-1803 of three Margarets, his cousin, mother and first child.
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October 2010
 Thoughts in Prison | 1777

Romantic Circles is pleased to announce the publication of William Dodd's long poem Thoughts in Prison (1777). Written while he was awaiting execution for forgery in his Newgate prison cell, the poem is unique among prison writings and in the history of English literature: none of the many reflections, stories, essays, ballads, and broadside "Confessions" originating—or purporting to have originated—in a jail cell over the last few hundred years can begin to match it in length, in the irony of its author's notoriety, or in the completeness of its erasure from history after a meteoric career in print that began to wane only at the turn of the nineteenth century.

An appendix presents manuscript versions of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower, my Prison," by way of suggesting a reliance, at least metaphorically, on this major work of prison literature by Romantic writers.
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September 2009
 The Letters of Robert Bloomfield and His Circle

This edition builds upon new scholarship on Romantic rural poet Robert Bloomfield, collecting all his extant letters plus a selection of those written to him by literary correspondents, with the hope that by presenting a properly edited and annotated collected letters we might enable the poet to be a significant figure for all those studying early nineteenth-century literature and culture.
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May 2009
 Frankenstein | 1818

This edition of Frankenstein, in gestation for over fifteen years, provides the texts of both the 1818 and 1831 editions, as well as copious annotations that emphasize the novel's strong inter- and intra-textual connections.
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March 2009
 The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part One | 1791 to 1797

Robert Southey was one of the best-known, controversial and innovative writers in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Based upon extensive new archival research, this Collected edition makes available for the first time all his surviving letters, freshly edited, annotated and introduced. Part One covers 1791-1797, turbulent years which saw the forging of Southey's career and reputation, his involvement in radical politics, and the beginning of his friendships with Wordsworth and Coleridge.
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March 2009
 The Collected Letters of Robert Southey

Robert Southey was one of the best-known, controversial and innovative writers in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Based upon extensive new archival research, this Collected edition makes available for the first time all his surviving letters, freshly edited, annotated and introduced.
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March 2008
 The Fall of Robespierre | 1794

This edition provides an annotated text of the play, supplemented by a wide range of literary and journalistic materials that offer contexts in which to understand the work's place in relation to the authors' politics, the transmission and reception of news, and the role of Robespierre within English political culture.
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December 2007
 New Letters from Charles Brown to Joseph Severn

A collection of 46 letters published in full for the first time, shedding new light on the life and character of Charles Brown and the most important friendship in the Keats Circle, as well as Keats’s complex legacy to his friends.
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August 2007
 The Brides' Tragedy

This edition presents both the full text and relevant contexts of the play, including a comprehensive introduction and extensive notes by the editor, two of the sources of the play, and four contemporary reviews.
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October 2006
 The Temple of Nature | 1803

The first fully annotated edition of Erasmus Darwin's influential scientific poem and its copious original notes; including the first publication, from draft, of Darwin's hitherto unknown poetic history of technology, The Progress of Society.
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January 2005
 Wondrous Tale of Alroy

This early novel, first published in 1833, represents Disraeli in "romantic mode." This version features the novel, an introduction, annotations, reprints of Disraeli's sources, contemporary reviews, & modern criticism, as well as a detailed bibliography of Disraeli's life and works, criticism, & other contextual materials.
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September 2004
 British War Poetry in the Age of Romanticism | 1793 to 1815

An electronic edition of Bennett's collection of 350 poems highlighting the complex attitudes to the wars of the period. Includes Bennett's original introduction & a new bibliography of poems not included in the original edition.
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August 2004
 Wat Tyler | 1817

An electronic edition of Robert Southey's poem based on the peasants' rebellion of 1381. This edition provides contextual background on the poem's embattled publication and partisan reception.
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January 2004
 The Sceptic; A Poem: A Hemans-Byron Dialogue

This edition places Hemans in direct contention with Byron over belief in an afterlife. Includes letters, reviews, poems & critical essays that probe the work for its engagements with Byron, allusions to topics of the day, & negotiation of gender.
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November 2003
 The Oceanides | 1832 to 1833

This edition situates the poem sequence within Jewsbury's life and career, including a prose account of her journey to India, memoirs, & poems inspired by her work. Allows readers to view original poems as they first appeared in The Athenaeum.
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August 2003
 Lyrical Ballads | 1798

This electronic edition makes available all 4 versions of Lyrical Ballads in the form of transcriptions edited from original printed copies, accompanied by images of each page. Enables active comparison of texts through Dynamic Collation.

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May 2003
 "Wanderings of Cain" | 1828

Publishes, for the first time, all the fragments of this unfinished poem in one edition. Includes a composite reading text, piecing together all the fragments, & a parallel reading text of both Canto II and verse fragment.
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September 2002
 Sporting Sketches during a Short Stay in Hindustane | 1814

Includes MS Shelley adds.e.21 and MS Shelley adds.c.12, together comprising Williams's complete travel journal to India, here published in its entirety for the first time. Also included is a critical introduction.
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August 2001
 Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein | 1823

Includes an introduction, full text of the play, images of the 1823 cast, a bibliography and filmography, the first reviews of Presumption, & a biography of Richard Brinsley Peake.
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April 2000
 Poems | 1773

Includes transcriptions, photo reproductions of the original volume, critical apparatus, & a "Poem Web," featuring detailed commentary & contextual materials for "On a Lady's Writing."
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