The Romantic author as spontaneous, extemporizing, otherworldly, and autonomous is a fiction much in need of revision. Many Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Byron, and Mary Shelley revised their works. This volume unveils the revisionary practices of these writers, showing that second thoughts in fact played a crucial role in composition.
The Romantic author is often portrayed as spontaneous, extemporizing, otherworldly, and alone. Zachary Leader argues that this influential fiction is much in need of revision. Romantic attitudes to authorship profess a preference for what comes naturally, with a concomitant devaluing of secondary processes, including second thoughts, yet many Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Coleridge, Clare, and Mary Shelley revised their works. Revision and Romantic Authorship looks at the revisionary practices of these writers, showing that second thoughts (including those of collaborators) in fact play a crucial role in "Romantic" composition.
Revision and Romantic Authorship is an intelligent, articulate, and well-documented analysis of recent textual scholarship and current theories of editing as these fields impinge upon critical understanding of the English Romantics ... those who have missed the beginning of the lively debates among editors and require a readable introduction to some of the issues now in play in the burgeoning field of textual theory should find ample value here as a starting point from which to engage both the texts of the Romantics and the primary documents underlying the various versions of those texts.
