Reading 1759

Reading 1759 investigates the literary culture of a remarkable year in British and French writing, and ideas. Examining key works by Johnson, Voltaire, Sterne, Adam Smith, Sarah Fielding, and Christopher Smart, the volume presents a wide-ranging account of the year’s work in literature and the key issues that preoccupied writers at this time.

Shaun Regan is lecturer in eighteenth-century and Romantic literature at Queen's University Belfast.

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction byShaun Regan I. Writing Empire 1. "What mankind has lost and gained": Johnson, Rasselas, and Colonialism by James Watt 2.. Voltaire's Candide as a Global Text: War, Slavery, and Leadership by Simon Davies II. Sentimental Ethics, Luxurious Sexualities 3. Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759: Spectatorship, Duty, and Social Improvement by Nigel Wood 4. "On the soft beds of luxury most kingdoms have expired": 1759 and the Lives of Prostitutes by Mary Peace III. Authorship and Aesthetics 5. Young, Goldsmith, Johnson, and the Idea of the Author in 1759 by Adam Rounce 6. Towards a New Language: Sublime Aesthetics in Smart's Jubilate Agnoby Rosalind Powell IV. Enlightenment and its Discontents 7. The Encyclopédie in 1759: Crisis and Continuation by Rebecca Ford 8. Lost Cause: Hume, Causation, and Rasselas by James Ward V. Originality and Appropriation 9. Eccentricity, Originality, and the Novel: Tristram Shandy, volumes 1 and 2 by Moyra Haslett 10. Shakespeare's "Propriety" and the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Novel: Sarah Fielding's The History of the Countess of Dellwynby Kate Rumbold VI. Conclusion: Reading 1759 11. Writers, Reviewers, and the Culture of Reading by Shaun Regan Bibliography About the Contributors