In 1818 Michael Faraday and a handful of other London artisans formed a self-help group with the aim of teaching themselves to write like gentlemen. For a year and a half Faraday's essay-circle met regularly to read aloud and criticise one another's writings. The 'Mental Exercises' they produced are a record of the life, literary tastes and social and political ideas of Dissenting artisans in Regency London. This book is the first to publish the essays and poems produced by Faraday's circle. The complete corpus of the essay-circle's writings is accompanied by detailed annotations, extracts...

Anne Home Hunter (1741-1821) was one of the most successful song writers of the second half of the eighteenth century, most famously as the poet who wrote the lyrics of many of Haydn's songs. However her work, which included many more serious, lyrical and romantic poems has been largely forgotten. This book contains over 200 poems, some published in her life-time under her married name 'Mrs John Hunter', some attributed only to 'a Lady', and most importantly many transcribed from her manuscripts, housed in various archives and in a private collection, which are now collected for the first...