'Angela Esterhammer's latest monograph presents a vividly detailed, panoramic view of a decade that was long disregarded as a disappointing lull between the heights of Romanticism and Victoria's ascension … The study's greatest contribution to literary studies may be to foster many such additional readings with its fresh understanding of the 1820s as an exuberant era of risk-taking experimentation in performance and print. Reading it is an immersive experience that provides a clear and convincing take on a fascinating decade.' Sarah Zimmerman, The Wordsworth Circle
List of illustrations; 1. Introduction: being there, circa 1824; 2. Periodical performances: Blackwood's, Knight's, and The Bachelor's Wife; 3. Mediating improvisation and improvising mediation: Tommaso Sgricci and periodical culture; 4. Personal identity, impersonation, and Charles Mathews: who is he when he's at home?; 5. Theodore Hook's Sayings and Doings on the page and the stage: 'a curious matter of speculation'; 6. Speculating on property: to and from the village with Galt, Mitford, and Scott; 7. Scottish fictions of 1824: permutations of identity; Bibliography; Index.