Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

John Clare

A Literary Life

  • Book
  • © 2002

Overview

Authors:
  1. Roger Sales

    1. School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, UK

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Literary Lives (LL)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. A Cage Glass All Round: Dilettante Patrons and Literary Philanthropists

    • Roger Sales
    Pages 1-29

  3. That Man I Would Have Him To Be: Public Relations and Peasant Poetry

    • Roger Sales
    Pages 30-75

  4. The Importance of Being Earnest: Manly Artisans and Sincere Sages

    • Roger Sales
    Pages 76-101

  5. High, Flighty and Frolicsome: Mad Poets and Moral Managers

    • Roger Sales
    Pages 102-129

  6. A Government Prison where Harmless People are Trapped: Regency Poets and Victorian Asylums

    • Roger Sales
    Pages 130-163

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 164-195
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book situates John Clare's long, prolific but often badly neglected literary life within the wider cultural histories of the Regency and earlier Victorian periods. The first half considers the construction of the Regency peasant-poet and how Clare performed this role on stages such as the London Magazine. It also looks at the way in which it went out of fashion as Regency mentalities were replaced by early Victorian ones. The second half recreates asylum culture and places Clare's performances as Regency boxers and Lord Byron within this bleak new world.

Reviews

'The historical and literary life around Clare has never been rendered with such masterful and polemical colour, nor with such a plethora of fascinating characters. Few writers on Clare can claim the range and vitality of Sales' extraordinary style. And what is more, there are innumerable fresh and provocative ideas here, many of them eminently quotable, and from which countless essays and theses will spring. For students and readers of Clare, this is an essential text.' Simon Kovesi, Oxford Brookes University, John Clare Society Journal

'A brilliant short polemic on the Regency underworld of dodgy poetry publishing, celebrity journalism and improving lunatic asylums; - Richard Holmes in The Guardian Review 'Books of the Year'

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, UK

    Roger Sales

About the author

ROGER SALES teaches in the School of English and American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His previous publications include Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation