At her death in 1825, Anna Letitia Barbauld was considered one of the great writers of her time. Distinguished as a poet and essayist, she was also in innovator in children's literature, an eloquent supporter of liberal politics, and a literary critic of stature. This edition includes a generous selection of her poetry and the first comprehensive body of her prose in more than a century, with essays—some never before reprinted—on literature, religion, education, prejudice, women's fashions, and class conflict.

Comments:

“As a poet, essayist, editor, and teacher, Anna Letitia Barbauld attained a position of eminence in her own time, distinguishing herself in a tradition of Dissenting writers, such as Priestley, Wollstonecraft, and Coleridge. McCarthy and Kraft's fascinating historical introduction and notes place Barbauld's life and work in the context of middle-class, Dissenting culture, noting her complex, and often misunderstood, positions on womanhood, Presbyterianism, and politics. Her poems are now regarded as landmarks in the dawn of English Romanticism, and the editors of this edition offer a generous selection of Barbauld's widely admired prose writings, many of which have not been reprinted until now. Here as poet and essayist Barbauld's rhetorical powers and commitment to justice, ingenuousness, tolerance, and imagination, to borrow her own phrase, 'shine out.' The volume is indispensable.” - Michele Martinez, Trinity College, Connecticut

“McCarthy and Kraft are the pre-eminent authorities on Barbauld. Extraordinarily well-researched and readable, this is a superb edition of works by one of the finest and most influential writers of the Romantic era.” - Paula Feldman, University of South Carolina

William McCarthy is the author of Hester Thrale Piozzo: Portrait of a Literary Woman (1985). Elizabeth Kraft is the author of Character and Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Comic Fiction (1992) and Laurence Sterne Revisited (1996). They co-edited The Poems of Anna Letitia Barbauld (1994) for the University of Georgia Press.

For more information on William McCarthy's published work on Anna Letitia Barbauld, please visit his website.

Academics please note that this is a title classified as having a restricted allocation of complimentary copies. While the availability of bound complimentary copies is restricted to desk copies only, electronic complimentary copies are readily available for those professors wishing to consider this title for possible course adoption. Should you choose to adopt the book after viewing an electronic copy we will be happy to provide a bound desk copy.

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Anna Letitia Barbauld: A Brief Chronology

Abbreviations of Titles Cited in the Notes

A Note on the Text

1. An Address to the Deity
2. To Mrs P[riestley], with some Drawings of Birds and Insects
3. The Invitation: To Miss B*****
4. To Dr. Aikin on his Complaining that she neglected him, October 20th 1768
5. Corsica
6. On the Death of Mrs. Jennings
7. On the Backwardness of the Spring 1771
8. The Mouse's Petition
9. An Inventory of the Furniture in Dr. Priestley's Study
10. Song I
11. Song V
12. To Wisdom
13. Hymn II
14. Hymn V
15. The Groans of the Tankard
16. Verses written in an Alcove
17. Hymn to Content
18. Ode to Spring
19. To a Lady, with some painted Flowers
20. Verses on Mrs. Rowe
21. A Summer Evening's Meditation
22. Hymn VI
23. To Mr. Barbauld, November 14, 1778
24. Love and Time
25. Lines to be spoken by Thomas Denman, on the Christmas before his Birthday, when he was four years old
26. Written on a Marble
27. A School Eclogue
28. Autumn: A Fragment
29. To the Baron de Stonne, who had wished at the next Transit of Mercury to find Himself again between Mrs. Laborde and Mrs. B[arbauld]
30. Epistle to Dr. Enfield, on his Revisiting Warrington in 1789
31. Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade
32. The Apology of the Bishops, in Answer to "Bonner's Ghost"
33. The Rights of Woman
34. Hymn VII
35. To a Great Nation
36. To Dr. Priestley, Dec. 29, 1792
37. Hymn: "Ye are the salt of the earth"
38. To the Poor
39. Inscription for an Ice-House
40. To Mr. S.T. Coleridge
41. Washing-Day
42. To a Little Invisible Being who is expected soon to become Visible
43. On the Death of Mrs. Martineau
44. [Lines for Anne Wakefield on her Wedding to Charles Rochemont Aikin, with a Pair of Chimney Ornaments in the Figures of two Females seated with open Books]
45. West End Fair
46. The Pilgrim
47. Dirge: Written November 1808
48. On the King's Illness
49. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, a Poem
50. Life
51. A Thought on Death
52. The First Fire
53. The Caterpillar
54. On the Death of the Princess Charlotte
55. The Baby-House
56. Lines written at the Close of the Year
57. Against Inconsistency in our Expectations
58. An Enquiry into those Kinds of Distress which Excite agreeable Sensations
59. Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, on Sects, and on Establishments
60. Hymns in Prose for Children
61. An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts
62. Fashion, a Vision
63. Pieces from Evenings at Home: The Young Mouse. A Fable, Things by their Right Names, The Four Sisters
    
64. Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation; or, a Discourse for the Fast, Appointed on April 19, 1793
65. What Is Education?
66. On Prejudice
67. Thoughts on the Inequality of Conditions
68. Letter from Grimalkin to Selima
69. from "Life of Samuel Richardson with Remarks on his Writings"
70. from The British Novelists: On the Origin and Progress of Novel-Writing
    
71. from Fielding: Johnson, Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Miss Burney, Mrs. Radcliffe
    
72. [Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine in Defense of Maria Edgeworth's Tale, "The Dun"]
73. Dialogue in the Shades
74. On Female Studies

Appendix A: from Elizabeth Carter, The Works of Epictetus

Appendix B: The Debate on Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1787-1790

Appendix C: The Royal Proclamation of a Fast in April 1793

Appendix D: The British Novelists: Predecessors, Contents, Allusions

Sources of the Texts

Bibliography