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John Thelwall and the Materialist Imagination reassesses Thelwall´s eclectic body of work from the perspective of his heterodox materialist arguments about the imagination, political reform, and the principle of life itself, and his contributions to Romantic-era science.

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Acknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Introduction: ´Mister Surgeon Thelwall´ 1. Vital Principles: From the Animal Body to the Body Politic 2. Errant Sympathies: The Peripatetic 3. From Self to Sentient Nature: Poems Written in Close Confinement and Poems, Chiefly Written in Retirement 4. Between Hope and Necessity: The Fairy of the Lake , The Hope of Albion , and The Daughter of Adoption 5. The Language of Nature: Elocutionary Writings and Poems, Chiefly Suggested by the Scenery of Nature 6. The Materialist Imagination: Late Poetry and Criticism Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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"In this book, Yasmin Solomonescu makes a dynamic and integrative contribution to the rapidly expanding field of Thelwall Studies and adds a vital new voice to contemporary critical conversations about nineteenth-century aesthetics, politics, and sciences of mind. ... Solomonescu´s energetic, accessible style reflects the ´practical fluency´ that Thelwall practised and promoted. ... this book marks a vigorous start to Solomonescu´s career, breathing new life into both Thelwall´s oeuvre and his contribution to Romantic literature." (Judith Thompson, Review 19, nbol-19.org, May, 2016)

"John Thelwall and the Materialist Imagination covers the range of Thelwall´s writing, including the novel Daughter of Adoption and the manuscript of poetry recently discovered in Derby. It includes an impressive account of the import of Thelwall´s elocutionary writings to his other work. The presentation of John Thelwall as the ´Champion of Materialism´ for his period is the key contribution of this monograph. Not only does it develop recent interest in Thelwall in his own right, but it provides a new perspective on the understanding of his role in the period´s materialist thinking. In this regard, Solomonescu´s work will speak to medical historians and historians of science as well as scholars of the Romantic period." Jon Mee, University of York, UK

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Yasmin Solomonescu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Previously she held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship at York University, Toronto. In addition to publishing articles on Thelwall and Romantic-era literature, she has edited John Thelwall: Critical Reassessments (2011) and, with Michael Scrivener and Judith Thompson, Thelwall´s The Daughter of Adoption (2013).

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