This book provides provocative information on poetry written in response to the most revolutionary set of events seen in Britain since the 1640s: 'Peterloo', a peaceful protest that became a massacre; 'Cato Street', a government scripted rebellion; and the 'Queen Caroline Controversy', when the estranged wife of George IV tried to claim her crown.

List of Illustrations Permissions Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Principal Players Introduction: 'The Radical Ladder' PART I: PETERLOO Peterloo Myth-Making: Samuel Bamford and Peterloo William Hone's Peterloo Shelley: Doggerel and Dialectics PART II: THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY The Cato Street Tragedy Charles Lamb and the Spy System Byron, Cato Street and Marino Faliero PART III: THE QUEEN CAROLINE CONTROVERSY Introducing the Players Byron and the Loyalists Shelley and the Radicals Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

JOHN GARDNER is Principal Lecturer in English Literature at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, where he has worked since 2004, having previously taught at the University of Glasgow. He has published on a range of authors and topics, mainly on nineteenth-century literary culture.