Overview
Against the background of the American and French revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars, and the struggle for religious equality in Great Britain, a brilliant, embattled woman strove to defend Enlightenment values to her nation. Poet, teacher, essayist, political writer, editor, and critic, Anna Letitia Barbauld was venerated by contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic, among them the young Walter Scott, the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Boston Unitarians such as William Ellery Channing. After decades in the historical limbo into which almost all work by women writers of her era was swept, Barbauld’s writings on citizenly ethics, identity politics, church-state relations, and empire are still deeply relevant today. Inquiring and witty as well as principled and passionate, Barbauld was a voice for the Enlightenment in an age of revolution and reaction.
Based on more than fifteen years of research in dozens of libraries and archives of five countries, this is the first full-length biography of one of the foremost women writers in Georgian England.
Synopsis
Against the background of the American and French revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars, and the struggle for religious equality in Great Britain, a brilliant, embattled woman strove to defend Enlightenment values to her nation. Poet, teacher, essayist, political writer, editor, and critic, Anna Letitia Barbauld was venerated by contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic, among them the young Walter Scott, the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Boston Unitarians such as William Ellery Channing. After decades in the historical limbo into which almost all work by women writers of her era was swept, Barbauld's writings on citizenly ethics, identity politics, church-state relations, and empire are still deeply relevant today. Inquiring and witty as well as principled and passionate, Barbauld was a voice for the Enlightenment in an age of revolution and reaction.
Based on more than fifteen years of research in dozens of libraries and archives of five countries, this is the first full-length biography of one of the foremost women writers in Georgian England.
Editorials
Studies in English Literature
Some lives intersect with the major events and movements of a time; Barbauld is such a figure.... She deserves the epithet of 'Voice of the Enlightenment.' This is an old-fashioned, magisterial biography.Choice
Based on two decades of research and a real mastery of Romantic-era literary culture, the book provides authoritative information not only on Barbauld's life and works but also on Romantic-era politics, education, gender relations, dissenting religion, children's literature, radical politics, the booktrade, mental health, and so on... Marked by accessible prose and meticulous documentation, this will be the definitive biography of Barbauld for decades. Essential.Eighteenth-Century Studies
McCarthy is true to both parts of his work's title: he not only gives us a comprehensive portrait of Anna Barbauld, but helpfully and skillfully places her voice within the social, political, and religious movements of her times. It is hard to imagine that his monumental work will be superseded anytime soon.— Lisa Vargo
Times Higher Education
A biography to relish and remember.— Isobel Grundy
Faith and Freedom
The title makes an extraordinary claim—that Anna Letitia Barbauld was a voice of and for the Enlightenment. How can this be said of a woman who, until this enthralling book was written, was known to so few? [The author] presents a thoroughly convincing case for saying it. He does this thanks to his extraordinary knowledge, not just of the life and work of Barbauld, but also of literature, culture and politics from her time (1743 to 1825) up to today.Literary Review
William McCarthy's twenty years of work on this author, which includes co-editorship of a fine Poems and Selected Poems and Prose, has now borne fruit in this monumental, quietly magnificent biography, which will surely do as much to promote Barbauld's reputation as anyone could dream.Guardian
A superb biography that brings a radical literary figure back into the picture... a thrilling, brilliant book.Times Literary Supplement
The public intellectual, cultural pluralist, 'ecofeminist' and literary innovator we meet in this richly meditated study is a passionately political Anna Barbauld whose concerns speak directly to issues that vex us today.Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society
A definitive account of her life, all the more magnificent for its finely grained detail.Wordsworth Circle
One need not be a literary scholar to find this biography engaging, informative, and provocative, for it explores, via the life of a remarkable 18th and 19th century woman writer, still relevant aesthetic, political, religious, and gender issues.London Review of Books
A compendious and admiring new biography.— Seamus Perry
The Year's Work in English Studies
This extraordinarily packed, fluidly written biography ought to influence scholars across Romantic studies.Huntington Library Quarterly
Rewards readers whether they are selectively dipping in or perusing the work from cover to cover... McCarthy brings psychology to bear in provocative and insightful ways.Studies in Romanticism
An excellent introduction not only to Barbauld herself but to the politics and culture of her time.Choice
Based on two decades of research and a real mastery of Romantic-era literary culture, the book provides authoritative information not only on Barbauld's life and works but also on Romantic-era politics, education, gender relations, dissenting religion, children's literature, radical politics, the booktrade, mental health, and so on... Marked by accessible prose and meticulous documentation, this will be the definitive biography of Barbauld for decades. Essential.
Guardian
A superb biography that brings a radical literary figure back into the picture... a thrilling, brilliant book.
Times Higher Education
A biography to relish and remember.
— Isobel Grundy
London Review of Books
A compendious and admiring new biography.
— Seamus Perry
Literary Review
William McCarthy's twenty years of work on this author, which includes co-editorship of a fine Poems and Selected Poems and Prose, has now borne fruit in this monumental, quietly magnificent biography, which will surely do as much to promote Barbauld's reputation as anyone could dream.
Times Literary Supplement
The public intellectual, cultural pluralist, 'ecofeminist' and literary innovator we meet in this richly meditated study is a passionately political Anna Barbauld whose concerns speak directly to issues that vex us today.
The Year's Work in English Studies
This extraordinarily packed, fluidly written biography ought to influence scholars across Romantic studies.
Faith and Freedom
The title makes an extraordinary claim -- that Anna Letitia Barbauld was a voice of and for the Enlightenment. How can this be said of a woman who, until this enthralling book was written, was known to so few? [The author] presents a thoroughly convincing case for saying it. He does this thanks to his extraordinary knowledge, not just of the life and work of Barbauld, but also of literature, culture and politics from her time (1743 to 1825) up to today.
Eighteenth-Century Studies
A tour de force... Honest, wise, original.
Studies in Romanticism
An excellent introduction not only to Barbauld herself but to the politics and culture of her time.
Studies in English Literature
Some lives intersect with the major events and movements of a time; Barbauld is such a figure.... She deserves the epithet of 'Voice of the Enlightenment.' This is an old-fashioned, magisterial biography.
Huntington Library Quarterly
Rewards readers whether they are selectively dipping in or perusing the work from cover to cover... McCarthy brings psychology to bear in provocative and insightful ways.
Wordsworth Circle
One need not be a literary scholar to find this biography engaging, informative, and provocative, for it explores, via the life of a remarkable 18th and 19th century woman writer, still relevant aesthetic, political, religious, and gender issues.
Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society
A definitive account of her life, all the more magnificent for its finely grained detail.
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Richly illustrated, compellingly argued, and elegantly written, McCarthy’s biography of Barbauld reminds us that, despite our lip-service topostmodern cynicism... transformative scholarship continues to be fundamentally 'Enlightenment' in its values, procedures, and rhetorical forms.Journal of British Studies
One leaves this biography with an intimate sense not just of how Barbauld navigated her particular worlds but also of how her interventions shaped individuals and movements in Britain and overseas.— Arianne Chernock