Rural Rides is the book for which the English journalist, agriculturist and political reformer William Cobbett is best known. At the time of writing Rural Rides, in the early 1820s, Cobbett was a radical anti-Corn Law campaigner. He embarked on a series of journeys by horseback through the countryside of Southeast England and the English Midlands. He wrote down what he saw from the points of view both of a farmer and a social reformer. The result documents the early 19th-century countryside and its people as well as giving free vent to Cobbett's opinions
In this volume a team of three dozen international experts presents a fresh picture of literary prose fiction in the Romantic age seen from cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives. The work treats the appearance of major themes in characteristically Romantic versions, the power of Romantic discourse to reshape imaginative writing, and a series of crucial reactions to the impact of Romanticism on cultural life down to the present, both in Europe and in the New World. Through its combination of chapters on thematic, generic, and discursive features, Romantic Prose Fiction achieves a unique theoretical stance, by considering the opinions of primary Romantics and their successors not as guiding “truths” by which to define the permanent “meaning” of Romanticism, but as data of cultural history that shed important light on an evolving civilization.SPECIAL OFFER: 30% discount for a complete set order (5 vols.).The Romanticism series in the Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages is the result of a remarkable international collaboration. The editorial team coordinated the efforts of over 100 experts from more than two dozen countries to produce five independently conceived, yet interrelated volumes that show not only how Romanticism developed and spread in its principal European homelands and throughout the New World, but also the ways in which the affected literatures in reaction to Romanticism have redefined themselves on into Modernism. A glance at the index of each volume quickly reveals the extraordinary richness of the series’ total contents. Romantic Irony sets the broader experimental parameters of comparison by concentrating on the myriad expressions of “irony” as one of the major impulses in the Romantic philosophical and artistic revolution, and by combining cross-cultural and interdisciplinary studies with special attention also to literatures in less widely diffused language streams. Romantic Drama traces creative innovations that deeply altered the understanding of genre at large, fed popular imagination through vehicles like the opera, and laid the foundations for a modernist theater of the absurd. Romantic Poetry demonstrates deep patterns and a sharing of crucial themes of the revolutionary age which underlie the lyrical expression that flourished in so many languages and environments. Nonfictional Romantic Prose assists us in coping with the vast array of writings from the personal and intimate sphere to modes of public discourse, including Romanticism’s own self-commentary in theoretical statements on the arts, society, life, the sciences, and more. Nor are the discursive dimensions of imaginative literature neglected in the closing volume, Romantic Prose Fiction, where the basic Romantic themes and story types (the romance, novel, novella, short story, and other narrative forms) are considered throughout Europe and the New World. This enormous realm is seen not just in terms of Romantic theorizing, but in the light of the impact of Romantic ideas and narration on later generations. As an aid to readers, the introduction to Romantic Prose Fiction explains the relationships among the volumes in the series and carries a listing of their tables of contents in an appendix. No other series exists comparable to these volumes which treat the entirety of Romanticism as a cultural happening across the whole breadth of the “Old” and “New” Worlds and thus render a complex picture of European spiritual strivings in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, a heritage still very close to our age.
Draws together diverse images of landscape to explore the historical processes shaping our continuing attachment to the countryside - seen in artistic expression, attitudes to nature, country life and the development of rural and urban land.
This book offers a personal view of the New Forest which stems from the author's many years of residence and research activities within the Forest. This has provided him with a deep appreciation of its unique rural charm and rich history. In writing this book the author wishes to share with readers his own enjoyment of this special part of England. Its difference from many other national parks is that it is home to many people and this has given the Forest a more dynamic environment. The New Forest has continued to develop and change over its ten centuries without losing its unique rural outlook. It has been a royal hunting ground, a source of timber to the nation, provided open space for grazing cattle, a source of minerals and charcoal, and more recently, a place dedicated to relaxation and leisure. In spite of these changes its character has remained remarkably unspoilt and many of its customs have survived to the present day. This New Edition (the first edition was published in 1998 and the second edition in 2008), includes additional historical material, updates and many new photos.
The enduring 'Town versus Country' debate lies at the root of modern British society. How far did the idealization of the countryside by artists and writers since the Industrial Revolution foster anti-urban, anti-industrial values? How have such values affected government policy, social structure and economic dynamism? Did post-war developments, in particular rural-urban commuting and environmentalist criticism of modern 'industrial' farming, undermine the traditional distinction between town and country, or are they themselves symptoms of the continuing allure of the rural idyll? This book will demonstrate the remarkable influence that attitudes to the countryside have had on the evolution of modern British life.
This volume explores how India as a geographical space was constructed by the British colonial regime in visual and material terms. It demonstrates the instrumentalisation of cultural artefacts such as landscape paintings, travel literature and cartography, as spatial practices overtly carrying scientific truth claims, to materially produce artificial spaces that reinforced power relations. It sheds light on the primary dominance of cartographic reason in the age of European Enlightenment which framed aesthetic and scientific modes of representation and imagination. The author cross-examines this imperial gaze as a visual perspective which bore the material inscriptions of a will to assert, possess and control. The distinguishing theme in this study is the production of India as a new geography sourced from Britain's own interaction with its rural outskirts and domination in its fringes. This book: Addresses the concept of "production of space" to study the formulation of a colonial geography which resulted in the birth of a new place, later a nation; Investigates a generative period in the formation of British India c. 1750–1850 as a colonial territory vis-à-vis its representation and reiteration in British maps, landscape paintings and travel writings; Brings Great Britain and British India together on one plane not only in terms of the physical geo-spaces but also in the excavation of critical domains by alluding to critics from both spaces; Seeks to understand the pictorial grammar that legitimised the expansive British imperial cartographic gaze as the dominant narrative which marginalised all other existing local ideas of space and inhabitation. Rethinking colonial constructions of modern India, this volume will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, cultural geography, colonial studies, English literature, cultural studies, art, visual studies and area studies.
Winner of the Association of Dress Historians Book of the Year Award, 2022 Traditionally associated with rural ways of life in England, often hand-crafted and held up as one of the only items of English folk dress to survive into the 20th century, the smock frock is an object of curiosity in many museum collections. Drawing on a wide variety of sources from surviving garments to newspapers and photographs, this book reveals the hidden history of the smock frock to present new social histories. Discussing the smock frock in its widest contexts, Alison Toplis explores how garments were handmade and manufactured by the ready-made clothing industry, and bought by men of different trades. She traces the smock frock's usage across England as well as in export markets such as Australia. Following the garment's decline in the late 19th century, the book investigates how this essentially utilitarian style of workwear came to be held up as an example of disappearing 'peasant' craft in an emotional response to urbanisation, and how it was preserved by collectors under the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement. Around the turn of the 20th century, the smock frock was reinvented as both women's and children's wear and is now regularly revived in fashion collections by the likes of Molly Goddard. Drawing together extensive visual and material cultures, Alison Toplis unravels a new history of the smock frock.
