Cohen, Michèle. Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the

Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge, 1996.

[This book, which focusses but does not limit itself to the English, examines the complicated relationships between language, class, and gender in the period. It includes interesting discussions of conceptions of "masculinity, of "The Grand Tour," and of social and cultural expectations attached to gentility in women.]

McIntosh, Carey. Common and Courtly Language: The Stylistics of Social Class in 18th-

Century English Literature. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1986.

[A very useful study of language and style in the eighteenth century. McIntosh begins with chapters on "Lower-Class English" and "Courtly-Genteel Prose,"; a further chapter applies her thesis to Hawkesworth's edition of Captain Cook's journals, Burney's Evelina, Fielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa, Smollett's Humprey Clinker; a final section addresses "courtly letters." ]

Piper, William Bowman. Common Courtesy in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.

Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997.

[Piper's book in an examination of the literary responses to an epistemological problem: how do individuals in the eighteenth century overcome solipsism and alienation to communicate and interact with others in a socially coherent culture? Piper sees "courtesy" as an important social mechanism for such interaction; his discussion of its workings takes in discussions of a variety of writers, but with particular attention to Berkeley, Pope, Sterne, Johnson, and Boswell.]

McCann, Andrew. Cultural Politics in the 1790s : Literature, Radicalism and the Public

Sphere. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1999.

[A broadly New Historicist study of responses in the 1790s to the radical ideological threat posed by the French Revolution; McCann sees in these responses (in a manner characteristic of his critical methodology) both an expression of the tensions produced within society by this threat, and a containment of them by a bourgeois mode of discourse. Central to this argument is an examination of Jurgen Habermas' notion of the "Public Sphere." Authors examined include Burke, Godwin, Thelwall, Wollstonecraft, Matthew Lewis, and Edgeworth.]

McIntosh, Carey. Common and Courtly Language: The Stylistics of Social Class in 18th-

Century English Literature. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1986.

[A very useful study of language and style in the eighteenth century. McIntosh begins with chapters on "Lower-Class English" and "Courtly-Genteel Prose,"; a further chapter applies her thesis to Hawkesworth's edition of Captain Cook's journals, Burney's Evelina, Fielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa, Smollett's Humprey Clinker; a final section addresses "courtly letters." ]

Brown, Laura. Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century

English Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.

[This is an overtly polemical work with a strongly feminist/Marxist perspective. It contains some useful perspectives on eighteenth-century imperialism and mercantilism, as well as focussed discussions of Behn's Oroonoko, "Domestic She-Tragedy," Pope (on women), Defoe (on trade and imperialism), and Swift. Although its critical methodology occasionally seems to have dated a little in the ten years since its publication, this is still a worthwhile and interesting study.]

Davis, Leith. Acts of Union : Scotland and the Literary Negotiation of the British

Nation, 1707-1830. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.

[Historians of the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries have, in recent years, increasingly become interested in the study of the distinct histories of the "dependent" kingdoms and principalities of Great Britain, notably, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. This book reflects that new focus in the attention that it pays to Scotland, and to that kingdom's political relationship to England as figured forth in eighteenth-century literature. Its examination begins with Defoe's perspectives on the Act of Union in 1707; further chapters detail the responses of Fielding and Smollett to the '45, Samuel Johnson's attitudes towards Scotland in general, and James Macpherson's forgery, Ossian, in particular, and Robert Burns. There are also discussions of William Wordsworth, and a very interesting chapter on Scottish ballad literature as filtered through Thomas Percy and Sir Walter Scott.]

McLoughlin, T. O. Contesting Ireland : Irish Voices Against England in the Eighteenth

Century. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999.

[Deriving, in some ways, from the same historiographic strain as Leith Davis' study of Scotland in the eighteenth-century (see above), this book departs from the norm somewhat in its focus upon Irish writers and commentators, rather than upon English depictions of that nation. Most usefully, it contains an interesting discussion of Maria Edgeworth.]

Sudan, Rajani. Fair Exotics: Xenophobic Subjects in English Literature, 1720-1853.

Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2002.

[At the time of writing, this book was still in the process of being catalogued and shelved.]

Weinbrot, Howard D. Britannia's Issue: The Rise of British Literature From Dryden to

Ossian. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 

[This is a truly massive study in which Weinbrot takes a favourite theme – the complicated relationship between eighteenth-century literature and the classical past – and develops it in a new and very interesting way. The book focusses upon the growing self-confidence of British literature, and its increasingly firm insistence upon its own cultural integrity and viability. Of central importance in this development, as Weinbrot sees it, is both a growing critique and revision of classical models, and the establishment of a distinctly "British" literary culture and tradition to rival the ancient exemplars. The book includes a very useful discussion of the growing interest in Celtic (and especially Scottish) culture in the period. An intimidating, but very useful study that ranges from Cowley and Dryden, through to Pope, Gray, Collins, and Macpherson.]

Gender and Writing

I have listed below some of the more useful general studies on the subject of women writers, although this list is by no means exhaustive. On occasion, as well, a work on a specific author (as for example, Richard Greene's book on Mary Leapor listed below) can provide insights or hints into approaches of other female writers. Many women writers (especially novelists) are of course also treated in more general thematic or generic studies.

Barash, Carol. English Women's Poetry, 1649-1714: Politics, Community, and Linguistic

Authority. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

[Focussing on the relationship between women and community, with a particular examination of women writers' approaches to Mary of Modena (King James II's queen) and Queen Anne, this work particularly treats Katherine Philips, Anne Killigrew, Jane Barker, and Anne Finch, Countess Winchilsea. Includes some good discussions of the theme of "friendship."]

Brown, Laura. Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century

English Literature. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.

[This is an overtly polemical work with a strongly feminist/Marxist perspective. It contains some useful perspectives on eighteenth-century imperialism and mercantilism, as well as focussed discussions of Behn's Oroonoko, "Domestic She-Tragedy," Pope (on women), Defoe (on trade and imperialism), and Swift. Although its critical methodology occasionally seems to have dated a little in the ten years since its publication, this is still a worthwhile and interesting study.]

Conway, Alison Margaret. Private Interests: Women, Portraiture and the Visual Culture

of the English Novel, 1709-1791. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto P, ca. 2001.

[An examination of the relationship between eighteenth-century portraiture and prose fiction, with a focus upon the female identity. Includes discussions of Delariviere Manley, Samuel Richardson, Eliza Haywood, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Angelica Kauffman, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Elizabeth Inchbald.]

Ferguson, Moira ed. First Feminists: British Women Writers, 1578-1799. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press; Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, ca. 1985.

Gallagher, Catherine. Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the

Marketplace, 1670-1820. Berkeley: University of California Press, ca. 1994.

[Explores women's writing, and especially prose fiction, from a wide variety of angles, but particularly the economic and political, and revealing "the underlying connections between the increasing prestige of female authorship, the economy of credit and debt, and the rise of the novel." Employing a broadly "New Historicist" approach, Gallagher deals in particular with Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, Charlotte Lennox, Frances Burney, and Maria Edgeworth.]

Greene, Richard. Mary Leapor: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Women's Poetry.

Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

[While this study focusses on the mid-eighteenth-century poet Mary Leapor, it has a great many interesting things to say about women writers of the period generally.]

Grundy, Isobel, and Susan Wiseman, ed. Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740. London:

B. T. Batsford, 1992.

Ingrassia, Catherine. Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century

England: A Culture of Paper Credit. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.

[This is an ambitious and complex book examining the intersections between the role played by eighteenth-century women as both financial speculators (associated in particular with the "South Sea Bubble"), and readers of novels. Focussing on the writings of Eliza Haywood, Alexander Pope, and the Samuel Richardson, it examines "feminized" representations of investors and stockjobbers, and the literary and cultural responses to the increased participation of women in the world of economic and literary capital.]

Looser, Devoney. British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

[Looser's Study focusses upon the writing of "history," including novelistic "histories," by women writers of the period, and examines the reasons behind the apparent refusal of these writers to more directly address issues of gender in their works. Writers treated include Lucy Hutchinson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Charlotte Lennox, Catherine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Austen.]

McDowell, Paula. The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the

London Literary Marketplace, 1678-1730. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

[An examination of the role of women writers in relation to a number of themes, with an emphasis upon politics. The first part of the book includes a very interesting discussion of women in the "book trade"; there is also much focus upon political activism, as expressed through writing, by women in the period. Very good on Delariviere Manley.]

Messenger, Ann. His and Hers: Essays in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century

Literature. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.

—. Gender at Work: Four Women Writers of the Eighteenth Century. Detroit: Wayne

StateUniversity Press, ca.1990.

—. Pastoral Tradition and the Female Talent: Studies in Augustan Poetry. New York:

AMS Press. 1999.

[The 1999 edition of this work is not available in Weldon; however, a new (2001) printing of this work is on order.]

Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of

the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England. Oxford: Clarendon; Oxford and Toronto: Oxford UP, 1990.

Nussbaum, Felicity. The Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women, 1660-1750.

Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, ca. 1984.

[This is the seminal study of the theme of misogyny in Restoration and early-eighteenth-century satire: it is a wide-ranging and very accessible study by a prominent critic that provides invaluable context for anyone working on satires against women.]

Pacheco, Anita, ed. Early Women writers, 1600-1720. London and New York: Longman,

1998.

[A study that includes both a useful preface on theoretical approaches to and conceptions of early women writers, and essays on specific authors of the period. The "General Editors' Preface" deals with modern feminist and materialist approaches to the subject, as well as touching upon "proto-feminism," and the relationships between gender and genre, and gender and race. Individual essays by a number of well-known critics examine Mary Wroth (sonnets, and Urania), Katherine Philips (with a focus on the theme of friendship), Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn (The Rover and Oroonoko), and Anne Finch. The collection includes also a "Glossary of Terms."]

Ribeiro, Alvaro and James G. Basker, eds. Tradition in Transition: Women Writers,

Marginal Texts, and the Eighteenth-Century Canon. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Salvaggio, Ruth. Enlightened Absence: Neoclassical Configurations of the Feminine.

Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1988.

Todd, Janet M. The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing, and Fiction, 1660-1800. London:

Virago Press, ca. 1989.

Weinbrot, Howard D. Britannia's Issue: The Rise of British Literature From Dryden to

Ossian. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 

[This is a truly massive study in which Weinbrot takes a favourite theme – the complicated relationship between eighteenth-century literature and the classical past – and develops it in a new and very interesting way. The book focusses upon the growing self-confidence of British literature, and its increasingly firm insistence upon its own cultural integrity and viability. Of central importance in this development, as Weinbrot sees it, is both a growing critique and revision of classical models, and the establishment of a distinctly "British" literary culture and tradition to rival the ancient exemplars. The book includes a very useful discussion of the growing interest in Celtic (and especially Scottish) culture in the period. An intimidating, but very useful study that ranges from Cowley and Dryden, through to Pope, Gray, Collins, and Macpherson.]

Felsenstein, Frank. Anti-semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English

Popular Culture, 1660-1830. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995.

[An interesting study of the "Jew" as portrayed in a very broad range of cultural productions from about 1660 into the first half of the nineteenth-century. Felsenstein traces a gradual liberalization of attitudes towards Judaism, from essentially medieval stereotypes, to a more inclusive and accepting attitude at the end of the period. In the course of this survey, he examines an impressive variety of pamphlets, poems, chapbooks, jest books, and other expressions of popular attitudes.]

Ehrenpreis, Irvin. Acts of Implication: Suggestion and Covert Meaning in the Works of

Dryden, Swift, Pope, and Austen. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980.

McIntosh, Carey. Common and Courtly Language: The Stylistics of Social Class in 18th-

Century English Literature. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1986.

[A very useful study of language and style in the eighteenth century. McIntosh begins with chapters on "Lower-Class English" and "Courtly-Genteel Prose,"; a further chapter applies her thesis to Hawkesworth's edition of Captain Cook's journals, Burney's Evelina, Fielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa, Smollett's Humprey Clinker; a final section addresses "courtly letters." ]

Piper, William Bowman. Common Courtesy in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.

Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997.

[Piper's book in an examination of the literary responses to an epistemological problem: how do individuals in the eighteenth century overcome solipsism and alienation to communicate and interact with others in a socially coherent culture? Piper sees "courtesy" as an important social mechanism for such interaction; his discussion of its workings takes in discussions of a variety of writers, but with particular attention to Berkeley, Pope, Sterne, Johnson, and Boswell.]

Piper, William Bowman. Common Courtesy in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.

Newark: U of Delaware P, 1997.

[Piper's book in an examination of the literary responses to an epistemological problem: how do individuals in the eighteenth century overcome solipsism and alienation to communicate and interact with others in a socially coherent culture? Piper sees "courtesy" as an important social mechanism for such interaction; his discussion of its workings takes in discussions of a variety of writers, but with particular attention to Berkeley, Pope, Sterne, Johnson, and Boswell.]

Chernaik, Warren. Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature. Cambridge; New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1995.

[A very useful and worthwhile study of libertinism in the Restoration, with an emphasis upon Rochester and Behn, but touching upon numerous others as well].

Cohen, Michèle. Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the

Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge, 1996.

[This book, which focusses but does not limit itself to the English, examines the complicated relationships between language, class, and gender in the period. It includes interesting discussions of conceptions of "masculinity, of "The Grand Tour," and of social and cultural expectations attached to gentility in women.]

Lynn Hunt, ed. The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of

Modernity, 1500-1800. New York: Zone Books, 1993.

[This collection of essays ranges quite far both geographically and chronologically; French pornography is particularly well covered (so to speak).].

Maccubbin, Robert P., ed. Tis Nature's Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality During the

Enlightenment. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987, ca. 1985.

[A very interesting and broad-ranging collection of essays that touch upon French as well as English sexuality throughout the Restoration and eighteenth-century; well worth a look.]

McFarlane, Cameron. The Sodomite in Fiction and Satire, 1660-1750. New York:

Columbia University Press, ca. 1997.

[A revisionist study that examines the nature of male homosexuality, and its depiction in literature, in the Restoration and early eighteenth-century.]

Roussel, Roy. The Conversation of the Sexes: Seduction and Equality in Selected

Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Texts. New York and Toronto: Oxford UP, 1986.

Salvaggio, Ruth. Enlightened Absence: Neoclassical Configurations of the Feminine.

Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1988.

Turner, James Grantham. Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London: Sexuality,

Politics, and Literary Culture, 1630-1685. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

[A new and very worthwhile study by one of the most important contemporary scholars working in the field of "libertinism"; especially useful for its discussions of "popular" attitudes and practices.]

Chernaik, Warren. Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature. Cambridge; New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1995.

[A very useful and worthwhile study of libertinism in the Restoration, with an emphasis upon Rochester and Behn, but touching upon numerous others as well].

Farley-Hills, David. Rochester's Poetry. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978.

[A good, solid book, with some good material on libertine culture: its critical assumptions are a little out-of-date, as perhaps is its generally optimistic view of Rochester's poetry.]

Foxon, David Fairweather. Libertine Literature in England, 1660-1745. New Hyde Park,

NY: University Books, [1966, ca.1965].

[A fascinating book, dealing primarily with the publication of, and market for, pornographic/libertine literature. Not as important for philosophical”or literary analysis, as it is for context.]

Griffin, Dustin H. Satires Against Man; the Poems of Rochester. Berkeley: University of

California Press, [ca. 1973].

[Although it is somewhat more old fashioned, what is said above of Farley-Hills' book applies here as well]

Hunt, Lynn, ed. The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of

Modernity, 1500-1800. New York: Zone Books, 1993.

[This collection of essays ranges quite far both geographically and chronologically; French pornography is particularly well covered (so to speak). Of interest in the context of Libertinism are Joan deJean's "The Politics of Pornography: L'Ecole des Filles," Rachel Weil's "Sometimes a Scepter is Only a Scepter: Pornography and Politics in Restoration England," and Randolph Trumbach's "Erotic Fantasy and Male Libertinism in Enlightenment England."].

Hutner, Heidi. Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism. Charlottesville:

University Press of Virginia, 1993.

[An interesting and worthwhile collection of essays, some of which are likely to be of interest, especially to those working on Behn.]

Maccubbin, Robert P., ed. Tis Nature's Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality During the

Enlightenment. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987, ca. 1985.

[A very interesting and broad-ranging collection of essays; well worth a look.]

Roussel, Roy. The Conversation of the Sexes: Seduction and Equality in Selected

Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Texts. New York and Toronto: Oxford UP, 1986.

Staves, Susan. Players' Scepters: Fictions of Authority in the Restoration. Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press, ca. 1979.

[An excellent study ideology, power, and libertinism in the Restoration, with a focus upon the theatre. There is much here concerning depictions of libertinism.]

Thormählen, Marianne. Rochester: The Poems in Context. Cambridge; New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1993.

[An occasionally rather stodgy study, and surprisingly uninformed by more recent theoretical and critical developments; nevertheless, it does contain some useful background materials]

Todd, Janet M. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. London: Pandora, 2000.

[An important, if confessedly highly-speculative biography of Behn, with much about her, her context, and libertinism, sexuality, and gender. Very worthwhile.]

Turner, James Grantham. Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London: Sexuality,

Politics, and Literary Culture, 1630-1685. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

[A new and very worthwhile study by one of the most important contemporary scholars working in the field of "libertinism"; especially useful for the way in which it broadens the traditional horizons of studies in libertinism, in dealing with popular literature, and other less well trampled fields.]

Underwood, Dale. Etherege and the Seventeenth-Century Comedy of Manners. New

Haven, Yale University Press, 1957.

[A classic study that helped establish the parameters for modern explorations of Restoration libertinism. Somewhat out-of-date now, but still very useful.]

Weber, Harold. The Restoration Rake-Hero: Transformations in Sexual Understanding

in Seventeenth-century England. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.

[Another classic study; very useful, although some of its assumptions have been challenged recently.]

Berglund, Lisa. "The Language of the Libertines: Subversive Morality in The Man of

Mode." Studies in English Literature 30 (1990): 369-386.

Braverman, Richard. "Libertines and Parasites," Restoration 11 (1987): 73-86.

Everett, Barbara. "The Sense of Nothing," Spirit of Wit: Reconsiderations of Rochester,

ed. Jeremy Treglown (Hamden, CN: Archon Books, 1982) 1-41.

Fabricant, Carole. "Rochester's World of Imperfect Enjoyment," Journal of English and

Germanic Philology 73 (1974): 338-50.

Fone, B.R.S. "Love's Last Shift and Sentimental Comedy," Restoration and 18th

Century Theatre Research 9:1 (1970): 11-23.

Gallagher, Catherine. "Who Was That Masked Woman? The Prostitute and the

Playwright in the Comedies of Aphra Behn," Women's Studies 15 (1988): 23-42.

Hughes, Derek. "Cibber and Vanbrugh: Language, Place, and Social Order in Love's

Last Shift," Comparative Drama 20:4 (1986-87): 287-304.

Hume, Robert D. "The Myth of the Rake in 'Restoration' Comedy," Studies in the

Literary Imagination 10 (1972): 25-55.

Love, Harold. "A Restoration Lampoon in Transmission and Revision: Rochester's(?)

'Signior Dildo,'" Studies in Bibliography 46 (1993): 250-62.

—. "But Did Rochester Really Write Sodom?" Papers of the Bibliographical Society of

America 87 (1993): 319-36.

Munns, Jessica. "'But to the Touch Were Soft': Pleasure, Power, and Impotence in

"The Disappointment' and 'The Golden Age,'" Aphra Behn Studies, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 178-96.

Novak, Maximillian E. "Margery Pinchwife's 'London Disease': Restoration Comedy

and the Libertine Offensive of the 1670's," Studies in the Literary Imagination 10 (1972): 1-23.

Pearson, Jacqueline. "The History of The History of the Nun," Rereading Aphra Behn:

History, Theory, and Criticism, ed. Heidi Hutner (Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993) 234-52.

Robinson, Ken. "Rochester and Hobbes and the Irony of A Satyr against Reason and

Mankind," Yearbook of English Studies 3 (1973).

Selden, Raman. "Rochester and Oldham: 'High Rants in Profaness,'" Seventeenth

Century 6:1 (1991): 89-103.

Snider, Alvin. "Professing a Libertine in The Way of the World," Papers on Language

and Literature 25 (1989): 376-397.

Turner, James Grantham. "The Properties of Libertinism," Eighteenth Century Life 9:3

(1985): 75-87.

—. "The Culture of Priapism," Review 10 (1988): 1-34.

Weber, Harold. "The Rake Hero in Wycherley and Congreve," Philological Quarterly

61:2 (1982): 143-160.

—. "'Drudging in Fair Aurelia's Womb': Constructing Homosexual Economies in

Rochester's Poetry," Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 33 (1992): 99-117.

Wilcoxon, Reba. "Rochester's Philosophical Premises: A Case for Consistency,"

Eighteenth-Century Studies 8 (1974): 183-201.

—. "The Rhetoric of Sex in Rochester's Burlesque," Papers in Language and

Literature 12 (1976): 273-84.

Wintle, Sarah. "Libertinism and Sexual Politics," Spirit of Wit: Reconsiderations of

Rochester, ed. Jeremy Treglown (Hamden, CN: Archon Books, 1982) 133-65.

Sudan, Rajani. Fair Exotics: Xenophobic Subjects in English Literature, 1720-1853.

Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2002.

[At the time of writing, this book was still in the process of being catalogued and shelved.]

Ingrassia, Catherine. Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century

England: A Culture of Paper Credit. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP, 1998.

[This is an ambitious and complex book examining the intersections between the role played by eighteenth-century women as both financial speculators (associated in particular with the "South Sea Bubble"), and readers of novels. Focussing on the writings of Eliza Haywood, Alexander Pope, and the Samuel Richardson, it examines "feminized" representations of investors and stockjobbers, and the literary and cultural responses to the increased participation of women in the world of economic and literary capital.]

Keen, Paul. The Crisis of Literature in the 1790s: Print Culture and the Public Sphere.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.

[An interesting study, rooted somewhat in the theoretical and historical identification of the development of a "public sphere" by the Jurgen Habermas, of the effects of growing literacy and print availability. Keen argues that the increasing literacy of the "lower orders" in the last decade of the eighteenth century, intersecting as it did with the political crisis posed by the French Revolution, threatened and frightened the "established" reading classes of England.]