Challenging the assumptions which underlie an understanding of the "Romantics" as solitary and anti-sociable, this volume introduces sociability to the field of Romantic literary and cultural studies. The volume focuses in particular on sociability in British radical culture of the 1790s as it moved away from eighteenth-century ideas of a masculine "public sphere," and on the gendered nature of sociability. In a range of essays the volume transforms our understanding of Romanticism by exploring the social networks of Romantic figures including Barbauld, Burney, Coleridge, Godwin, Hazlitt, Priestley, Thelwall and Wollstonecraft.

Acknowledgements; 1. Introducing Romantic sociability Gillian Russell and Clara Tuite; 2. Sociability and the international republican conversation Margaret C. Jacob; 3. 'Equality and no king': sociability and sedition; the case of John Frost James Epstein; 4. Amiable and radical sociability: Anna Barbauld's 'free familiar conversation' Anne Janowitz; 5. Firebrands, letters and flowers: Mrs. Barbauld and the Priestleys Deirdre Coleman; 6. 'Reciprocal expressions of kindness': Robert Merry, the Della Cruscans, and the limits of Romantic sociability Jon Mee; 7. Spouters of washerwomen: the sociability of Romantic lecturing Gillian Russell; 8. Hazlitt and the sociability of theatre Julie A. Carlson; 9. 'Obliged to make this sort of deposit of our minds': William Godwin and the sociable contract of writing Judith Barbour; 10. The Byronic woman: Anne Lister's style, sociability and sexuality Clara Tuite; 11. Counter publics: shopping and women's sociability Deidre Shauna Lynch; Bibliography; Index.