http://www.pickeringchatto.com/gilbertimlay.htm

This monograph is the first book-length biography of  the American Gilbert Imlay (?1754–?1828),  Revolutionary War veteran, land-jobber, travel-writer, novelist,  entrepreneur, agent provocateur  – and infamous lover of Mary Wollstonecraft. The book concerns an Imlay  little known to those working in Romantic Studies, so includes a  reconstruction of Imlay’s early life in New Jersey; an account of his  activities as a land speculator; the intriguing relations he had with a  spate of historical characters; and his involvement with the Girondist  government’s plans to launch a revolt in the Western Territory against  the US to destabilize Spanish rule in Louisiana. Previously undocumented  details of Imlay’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade are  also included.

Though his life provides a fascinating biography in  its own right, the book highlights how Imlay unwittingly acted as an intermediary between figures of greater significance, whose diverse ideas,  ambitions and schemes he frequently borrowed and disseminated across the  Atlantic and across continents, whilst invariably serving his own  interests.

Much of the text  is based on original documentary sources (including Imlay’s largely  unknown letters), gathered from a variety of rare book and manuscript  collections. It will be of interest to scholars of Romanticism,  politics, biography and book history.

Author

Wil Verhoeven is professor of American culture at the  University of Groningen. In 2002-3 he held the Charles H. Watts chair in  the history of the book and historical bibliography at Brown University.  His publications include two edited collections: Revolutionary Histories: Transatlantic Cultural Nationalism, 1775-1815  (Palgrave, 2002) and Epistolary  Histories: Letters, Fiction, Culture (with Amanda Gilroy; University  of Virginia Press, 1999). He is general editor of a series of anti-Jacobin  novels for Pickering & Chatto (2005), and has also edited George Walker’s The Vagabond  (Broadview Press, 2004) and co-edited Gilbert Imlay’s The Emigrants (with Amanda Gilroy; Viking Penguin, 1998). He is  currently writing a monograph on British radicals and American land  speculators, American Arcadia: Transatlantic Emigration and British Radicalism, 1789-1800, and is  general editor of The Novels and Selected Plays of Thomas Holcroft for Pickering &  Chatto (forthcoming).

Publication  details

Book  history has developed in recent years as an increasingly dynamic,  cross-disciplinary endeavour.  Building on the widespread interest in material culture, visual culture,  and media studies, a new vitality has been brought to this area of  research. 

Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History,  an exciting and original new monograph, offers a variety of approaches to  incorporating discussions of book history or print culture into graduate  and undergraduate classrooms. Through twenty-five collected essays, it  considers the book as a literary, historical, cultural, and aesthetic  object.

Given the growing  popularity of book history across numerous fields, this collection  represents many viewpoints and diverse backgrounds. The essays will  therefore appeal to university teachers incorporating textual studies and  research methods into their courses, either as a component or as a central  focus.

Contributors:

Martin  Antonetti, Smith College; Susanna  Ashton, Clemson University; Timothy  Barrett, University of Iowa Center for the Book; Terry  Belanger, University of Virginia Rare Book School; Lisa  Berglund, Buffalo State University; John  Buchtel, Johns Hopkins University; Bruce  Cammack, Texas Tech University; Tatjana Chorney,  Saint Mary’s University, Canada; Jean  Lee Cole, Loyola College in Maryland; Erik  Delfino, Catholic University of America; Mirjam Foot,  University College, London; Ian Gadd, Bath Spa  University College; Sean Grass, Texas Tech University;  R. Carter  Hailey, The College of William and Mary;  Maura Ives,  Texas A & M University; Erick Kelemen, Independent Scholar; Thomas  Kinsella, Richard Stockton College; Matthew  Kirschenbaum, University of Maryland, College Park; D  W Krummel, University of Illinois at Urbana; Jennifer  Phegley, University of Missouri, Kansas City; John  T Shawcross, University of Kentucky; Sydney  Shep, Wai-te-ata Press at Victoria University of Wellington; Steven  Escar Smith, Texas A & M University; Willman  Spawn, Bryn Mawr College; Deirdre  Stam, Long Island University; Daniel  Traister, University of Pennsylvania

Publication  details

http://www.pickeringchatto.com/writinghome.htm

Women Writing Home assembles a wide range of women’s letters from the former British Empire, in the most comprehensive, modern and scholarly reset edition to date.

These letters ‘written home’ are not only straightforward historical sources; they are also representations of the state of the Empire in far-off lands sent home to Britain and, occasionally, other centres established as ‘home’. The letters reveal the many different ways in which women perceived colonial society. Sometimes the new context offered opportunities unavailable at home but often these letter-writing women pined for what they had left behind.

Organised by geographical region, the set pays close attention to the regional and local specificities of colonial situations in various parts of the British Empire: from the settler colonies of North America, Australia and New Zealand to the isolated military and administrative outposts in Asia and the complex ethnic and economic situation of South Africa.

These six volumes of letters are an important research tool for those working in a wide range of disciplines, from history to economics, from literature to cultural and gender studies.

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