This investigation of literary history writing between 1770 and 1820 identifies the mode's distinction from canon formation as central to its cultural vitality. Using secret history, memoir and the novel, amongst other sources, it invites a re-thinking of literary history's place in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century print culture.

Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: WRITING AND REWRITING LIVES Writing Lives Rewriting Lives: Revolution, Reaction, and Apostasy PART II: LITERARY HISTORY AND BOOKS Bibliomania and Antiquarianism Literary History and Literary Specimens PART III: ISAAC D'ISTAELI AND LITERARY HISTORY Apostasy and Exclusion The Structures of Opinion PART IV: THE GENRES OF LITERARY HISTORY The 'whole mind of the nation' Literary History, Periodicals, Lectures Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

APRIL LONDON is Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of Women and Property in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel (1999).