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The proper organisation of rural communities was central to political and social debates at the turn of the eighteenth century, and featured strongly in the 1790s political polemic that influenced so many Romantic poets and novelists. This book investigates the representation of the rural village and country town in a range of Romantic texts.

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Introduction 1. The Cottager and 1790s Political Polemic 2. Wordsworth and Community 3. The Gentry and Farming in Jane Austen´s Fiction 4. George Crabbe and the Architecture of the Parish 5. Agrarian Reform and the Community in Burns 6. Ebenezer Elliott, the Industrial Revolution and the Rural Village Epilogue Notes Select Bibliography Index

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´A fresh and perceptive study that will make a wholly positive impact. Simon J. White opens new approaches to the lively field of studies on rural and labouring-class poets of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Robert Burns appears in conversation with Robert Bloomfield and John Clare, and all readers will welcome the book´s revisionary stance on topics such as enclosure. Chapter by chapter, Romanticism and the Rural Community deftly moves all of the arguments forward.´ Nicholas Roe, University of St Andrews, UK

´White is an incisive commentator who is not afraid to take revisionary perspectives on his subjects, and who supplies detailed historical knowledge to his critical readings. He brings considerable expertise to his readings of Bloomfield, and his chapter on Crabbe will do much I hope to aid the burgeoning resurrection of the poet´s reputation. Enthusiasts of Romantic-period rural

writing will find much to enjoy in this book.´ Simon J. White, John Clare Society Journal

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Simon White is an AHRC Early-Career Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at Oxford Brookes University, UK. His previous publications include Robert Bloomfield, Romanticism and the Poetry of Community (2007) and essays on Bloomfield, John Clare, Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Hardy in leading academic journals. He is currently writing a book on witchcraft and magic in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century regional fiction.

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