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Books by Nicholas Mason

Research paper thumbnail of Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes: A Romantic Circles Digital Edition

First published in 1810 and repeatedly revised by its author over the ensuing twenty-five years, ... more First published in 1810 and repeatedly revised by its author over the ensuing twenty-five years, William Wordsworth’s *Guide to the Lakes* has long been considered a crucial text for scholars of Romantic-era aesthetics, ecology, travel writing, and tourism. Though the fifth edition of 1835 (the last revised by Wordsworth) has remained available in reprints and scholarly editions, earlier editions of the *Guide* continue to be scarce. This is particularly true of the original 1810 version, which appeared as an anonymous accompaniment to a set of Lake District sketches by the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson.

The present edition, then, aims to give scholars, students, and general readers easy and open access to key editions of the *Guide* from Wordsworth’s lifetime, including full scans of Wilkinson’s 1810 sketches and Wordsworth’s texts of 1810 and 1835. Accompanying these original texts is an extensive scholarly apparatus that includes a historical and textual introduction to this edition; detailed footnotes on the texts; an annotated bibliography of previous scholarly editions and criticism on the *Guide*; and excerpts from letters by Wordsworth and his circle that shed light on the work’s production, reception, and revision.

Taking advantage of digital technologies, this edition also includes a parallel-text feature, which allows readers to readily visualize how Wordsworth altered particular passages across the five editions published between 1810 and 1835. Beyond this, the edition features a wealth of maps, engravings, and photographs of the Lakes and a geo-tracking feature that allows readers to pinpoint exact locations discussed in the *Guide* with the click of a mouse. Thus, while in many respects this aims to serve as a standard scholarly edition of the text, in others it offers a new, and hopefully fuller, experience with one of Wordsworth’s most illuminating, challenging, and compelling works.

Research paper thumbnail of Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism

Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism investigates the elaborate connection... more Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism investigates the elaborate connections between Britain’s advertising and literature industries during the Romantic Century (1750–1850). Mason argues that the seemingly antagonistic arenas of marketing and literature share a common genealogy and, in many instances, even a symbiotic relationship. Drawing from archival materials such as publishers’ account books, merchants’ trade cards, and authors’ letters, Mason traces the beginnings of many modern advertising methods—including product placement, limited-time offers, and journalistic puffery—to the British book trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Individual chapters explore such topics as Lord Byron’s appropriation of branding, Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s experiments in visual marketing, and late-Romantic debates over advertising's claim to be a new branch of the literary arts.

Research paper thumbnail of History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson

In 1754 the British adventurer, compiler, and novelist Edward Kimber published The History of the... more In 1754 the British adventurer, compiler, and novelist Edward Kimber published The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson. Rooted in a tale Kimber heard while exploring the Atlantic seaboard, Mr. Anderson is the novelist's transatlantic tale of slavery, Indian relations, and frontier life. Having been kidnapped in England, transported across the Middle Passage, and sold to a brutal Maryland planter as a white slave, Tom Anderson gains his freedom and in rapid succession becomes a successful trader, a war hero, and a friend to slave, Indian, Quebecois, and Englishman alike. Still engaging 250 years after its original publication, Mr. Anderson offers a rich and varied portrayal of the mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic world.

This Broadview edition features an introduction by both a literary scholar and a historian, elaborating on significant themes in the novel. The appendices include an extensive selection of documents – some unpublished elsewhere – further contextualizing many of those themes, including slavery, British representations of colonial America, and eighteenth-century British literature's emphasis on sensibility and the "cult of feeling."

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, 1817-1825: Selections from Maga's Infancy

This is the first comprehensive scholarly edition of Blackwood’s Magazine's early years. The six-... more This is the first comprehensive scholarly edition of Blackwood’s Magazine's early years. The six-volume set draws together the most influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared during the magazine's early years, when John Lockhart and William Maginn were on the staff.

The staunchly conservative, Edinburgh-based monthly was the most trenchant critic of the ‘Cockney School’, gleefully baiting Leigh Hunt’s circle and (at least in popular legend) collaborating with the Quarterly Review to send Keats to an early grave. ‘Maga’ (as Blackwood’s was widely known) was an early appreciator of Percy and Mary Shelley, an occasional champion of the middle-aged Wordsworth and Coleridge, and a shrewd commentator on the ‘Byromania’ that swept Europe.
This collection will be useful for scholars interested in early-nineteenth-century British literature and culture, and texts have been chosen for their usefulness in researching and teaching British Romanticism.

Research paper thumbnail of British Satire, 1785-1840

Papers by Nicholas Mason

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, Anti-Americanism, and the Beginnings of Transatlantic Studies

Research paper thumbnail of The Perils of Puffery

Symposium Magazine, Nov 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Communal Reception, Mary Shelley, and the 'Blackwood's School' of Criticism

Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Special Issue: Romanticism and Independence

European Romantic Review, 2012

Conference issue co-edited with Andrew Franta

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, Anti-Americanism, and the Beginnings of Transatlantic Literary Studies

Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Consumer Culture: Getting and Spending in Romantic Britain

Blackwell's Concise Companion to Romanticism, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of The Quack Has Become God: Puffery, Print, and the 'Death' of Literature in Romantic-Era Britain

Nineteenth-century Literature, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Building Brand Byron: Early-Nineteenth-Century Advertising and the Marketing of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Modern Language Quarterly, Jan 1, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of The Sovereign People are in a Beastly State: The Beer Act of 1830 and Victorian Discourse on Working-Class Drunkenness

Victorian Literature and Culture, 2001

Book Reviews by Nicholas Mason

Research paper thumbnail of David Latane, William Maginn and the British Press

Research paper thumbnail of Susan Wolfson, Romantic Interactions

Nineteenth-century Literature, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Review of four new books on British periodicals

European Romantic Review, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Sara Thornton, Advertising, Subjectivity, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Research paper thumbnail of William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period

Studies in Romanticism, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes: A Romantic Circles Digital Edition

First published in 1810 and repeatedly revised by its author over the ensuing twenty-five years, ... more First published in 1810 and repeatedly revised by its author over the ensuing twenty-five years, William Wordsworth’s *Guide to the Lakes* has long been considered a crucial text for scholars of Romantic-era aesthetics, ecology, travel writing, and tourism. Though the fifth edition of 1835 (the last revised by Wordsworth) has remained available in reprints and scholarly editions, earlier editions of the *Guide* continue to be scarce. This is particularly true of the original 1810 version, which appeared as an anonymous accompaniment to a set of Lake District sketches by the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson.

The present edition, then, aims to give scholars, students, and general readers easy and open access to key editions of the *Guide* from Wordsworth’s lifetime, including full scans of Wilkinson’s 1810 sketches and Wordsworth’s texts of 1810 and 1835. Accompanying these original texts is an extensive scholarly apparatus that includes a historical and textual introduction to this edition; detailed footnotes on the texts; an annotated bibliography of previous scholarly editions and criticism on the *Guide*; and excerpts from letters by Wordsworth and his circle that shed light on the work’s production, reception, and revision.

Taking advantage of digital technologies, this edition also includes a parallel-text feature, which allows readers to readily visualize how Wordsworth altered particular passages across the five editions published between 1810 and 1835. Beyond this, the edition features a wealth of maps, engravings, and photographs of the Lakes and a geo-tracking feature that allows readers to pinpoint exact locations discussed in the *Guide* with the click of a mouse. Thus, while in many respects this aims to serve as a standard scholarly edition of the text, in others it offers a new, and hopefully fuller, experience with one of Wordsworth’s most illuminating, challenging, and compelling works.

Research paper thumbnail of Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism

Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism investigates the elaborate connection... more Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism investigates the elaborate connections between Britain’s advertising and literature industries during the Romantic Century (1750–1850). Mason argues that the seemingly antagonistic arenas of marketing and literature share a common genealogy and, in many instances, even a symbiotic relationship. Drawing from archival materials such as publishers’ account books, merchants’ trade cards, and authors’ letters, Mason traces the beginnings of many modern advertising methods—including product placement, limited-time offers, and journalistic puffery—to the British book trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Individual chapters explore such topics as Lord Byron’s appropriation of branding, Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s experiments in visual marketing, and late-Romantic debates over advertising's claim to be a new branch of the literary arts.

Research paper thumbnail of History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson

In 1754 the British adventurer, compiler, and novelist Edward Kimber published The History of the... more In 1754 the British adventurer, compiler, and novelist Edward Kimber published The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson. Rooted in a tale Kimber heard while exploring the Atlantic seaboard, Mr. Anderson is the novelist's transatlantic tale of slavery, Indian relations, and frontier life. Having been kidnapped in England, transported across the Middle Passage, and sold to a brutal Maryland planter as a white slave, Tom Anderson gains his freedom and in rapid succession becomes a successful trader, a war hero, and a friend to slave, Indian, Quebecois, and Englishman alike. Still engaging 250 years after its original publication, Mr. Anderson offers a rich and varied portrayal of the mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic world.

This Broadview edition features an introduction by both a literary scholar and a historian, elaborating on significant themes in the novel. The appendices include an extensive selection of documents – some unpublished elsewhere – further contextualizing many of those themes, including slavery, British representations of colonial America, and eighteenth-century British literature's emphasis on sensibility and the "cult of feeling."

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, 1817-1825: Selections from Maga's Infancy

This is the first comprehensive scholarly edition of Blackwood’s Magazine's early years. The six-... more This is the first comprehensive scholarly edition of Blackwood’s Magazine's early years. The six-volume set draws together the most influential, scandalous, and entertaining texts which appeared during the magazine's early years, when John Lockhart and William Maginn were on the staff.

The staunchly conservative, Edinburgh-based monthly was the most trenchant critic of the ‘Cockney School’, gleefully baiting Leigh Hunt’s circle and (at least in popular legend) collaborating with the Quarterly Review to send Keats to an early grave. ‘Maga’ (as Blackwood’s was widely known) was an early appreciator of Percy and Mary Shelley, an occasional champion of the middle-aged Wordsworth and Coleridge, and a shrewd commentator on the ‘Byromania’ that swept Europe.
This collection will be useful for scholars interested in early-nineteenth-century British literature and culture, and texts have been chosen for their usefulness in researching and teaching British Romanticism.

Research paper thumbnail of British Satire, 1785-1840

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, Anti-Americanism, and the Beginnings of Transatlantic Studies

Research paper thumbnail of The Perils of Puffery

Symposium Magazine, Nov 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Communal Reception, Mary Shelley, and the 'Blackwood's School' of Criticism

Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Special Issue: Romanticism and Independence

European Romantic Review, 2012

Conference issue co-edited with Andrew Franta

Research paper thumbnail of Blackwood's Magazine, Anti-Americanism, and the Beginnings of Transatlantic Literary Studies

Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Consumer Culture: Getting and Spending in Romantic Britain

Blackwell's Concise Companion to Romanticism, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of The Quack Has Become God: Puffery, Print, and the 'Death' of Literature in Romantic-Era Britain

Nineteenth-century Literature, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Building Brand Byron: Early-Nineteenth-Century Advertising and the Marketing of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Modern Language Quarterly, Jan 1, 2002

Research paper thumbnail of The Sovereign People are in a Beastly State: The Beer Act of 1830 and Victorian Discourse on Working-Class Drunkenness

Victorian Literature and Culture, 2001

Research paper thumbnail of David Latane, William Maginn and the British Press

Research paper thumbnail of Susan Wolfson, Romantic Interactions

Nineteenth-century Literature, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Review of four new books on British periodicals

European Romantic Review, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Sara Thornton, Advertising, Subjectivity, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Research paper thumbnail of William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period

Studies in Romanticism, 2008