Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830: From Revolution to Revolution

This study examines the radical tradition in British literary culture from the English Revolution to the French Revolution. It charts continuities between the two periods and examines the recuperation of ideas and texts from the earlier period in the 1790s and beyond. The volume argues that the radical agendas of the mid-seventeenth century, intended to change society fundamentally, did not disappear throughout the long eighteenth-century, only to be resuscitated at its close. Rather, through close textual analysis, these essays indicate a more continuous transmission.