FROM FAMILY TO PHILOSOPHY
Letter-Writers from the Pastons to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
By Henry Summerfield
2019
ISBN 9781550586473 (paperback), 9781550586480 (PDF), 9781550586497 (EPUB)
512 pages
Print, PDF, EPUB
A cultural change in the Renaissance freed talented European writers to compose letters rivaling the finest that survived from ancient Rome. This book traces the lives and outlooks of distinguished Britons as revealed in their correspondence. The subjects range from the fierce satirist Jonathan Swift to the long-lived, all-observing Horace Walpole and from the poet and freedom fighter Lord Byron to the tormented but brilliant Jane Carlyle. Accompanying the self-portraits these writers unwittingly create are their many sketches of their contemporaries. Moreover, the views they express on forms of government, feminism, literature, theology, religious toleration, and other topics serve to relate their lives to the progression from the Age of Reason through the Romantic period to the Victorian era.
Subjects: English letters
Dr. Henry Summerfield was born in 1935 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He has an M.A. from Oxford, where he studied at Exeter College, and an M.Litt. from the University of Durham. From 1962 to 1964, he taught at the M. S. University of Baroda, India, and from 1964 to 1966 at the University of Illinois. In 1966, he emigrated to Canada, and from that year until 2003 he taught at the University of Victoria. His special interests are eighteenth century British literature, twentieth century English poetry, and Bibliography. In addition to articles, he has published That Myriad-minded Man: A biography of George William Russell, “A.E,” (1867-1935); An Introductory Guide to The Anathemata and the Sleeping Lord Sequence of David Jones (1979); and A Guide to the Books of William Blake for Innocent and Experienced Readers (1998).
FROM FAMILY TO PHILOSOPHY: Letter-Writers from the Pastons to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
PREFACE
Chapter 1 | A PHILOSOPHER IN INTERESTING TIMES AND AN EMPEROR’S BENEVOLENT SERVANT
Chapter 2 | NAKED AMBITION
Chapter 3 | VICTIMS OF POWER
Chapter 4 | BLINKERED NOBLENESS
Chapter 5 | A SCHOLAR ABROAD
Chapter 6 | JACOBEAN GOSSIP
Chapter 7 | SPYMASTER, POET, PROVOST OF ETON
Chapter 8 | A TROUBLED LIFE
Chapter 9 | IN TIME OF CIVIL WAR
Chapter 10 | ON THE CUSP OF MODERNITY
Chapter 11 | AN EARLY CHARMER
Chapter 12 | THE SELF AND THE MODERN WORLD
Chapter 13 | HE LOVES HIS FRIENDS
Chapter 14 | PUTTING A SPIN ON IT
Chapter 15 | NO ONE’S OBEDIENT SERVANT
Chapter 16 | WANDERING DOWN BYWAYS
Chapter 17 | ALL-ACCOMPLISHED GENTLEMAN
Chapter 18 | HE FEARS MADNESS
Chapter 19 | LOCKEAN SENTIMENTALIST
Chapter 20 | NOT QUITE A RECLUSE
Chapter 21 | HE GATHERS IT ALL IN
Chapter 22 | HE HAS ESCAPED FROM SLAVERY
Chapter 23 | HEAVEN IS NOT FOR HIM
Chapter 24 | A MARRIAGE FAILS IN INDIA
Chapter 25 | FARMER, POET, LOVER, EXCISEMAN
Chapter 26 | HE LOVES LIBERTY—BUT NOT TOO MUCH OF IT
Chapter 27 | OFTEN DOWN, BUT NEVER OUT
Chapter 28 | SHE OBEYS THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT
Chapter 29 | WHAT IS HIS VOCATION?
Chapter 30 | SEEKER OF BEAUTY, VICTIM OF PASSION
Chapter 31 | A SHARP TONGUE AND A HUNGRY HEART
Chapter 32 | NOT AN ELOPEMENT—JUST A PRIVATE MARRIAGE
Chapter 33 | WHAT A LITERATURE IS HERE!
NOTES
FURTHER READING
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