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In the most comprehensive, up-to-date account of the poetry published in Britain between the Restoration and the end of the eighteenth century, a team of leading experts surveys the poetry of the age in all its richness and diversity. They provide a systematic overview, and restore these poetic works to a position of centrality in modern criticism.

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In the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the poetry published in Britain between the Restoration and the end of the eighteenth century, forty-four authorities from six countries survey the poetry of the age in all its richness and diversity-serious and satirical, public and private, by men and women, nobles and peasants, whether published in deluxe editions or sung on the streets. The contributors discuss poems in social contexts, poetic identities,
poetic subjects, poetic form, poetic genres, poetic devices, and criticism. Even experts in eighteenth-century poetry will see familiar poems from new angles, and all readers will encounter poems they´ve never read before. The book is not a chronologically organized literary history, nor an encyclopedia,
nor a collection of thematically related essays; rather it is an attempt to provide a systematic overview of these poetic works, and to restore it to a position of centrality in modern criticism.

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The best pieces in this volume take account of recent book history, which has transformed our understanding of print culture in the period... Hammond´s exemplary account, wide-ranging, insightful, and beautifully written,is one example among many of the riches of this book. Jane Dar cy (University College, London), Modern Language Review

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Jack Lynch is Professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark, and the author or editor of eighteen books, including The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson and Deception and Detection in Eighteenth-Century Britain. He is co-editor of The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual.

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