The edition brings together the known writings in poetry and prose of Edward Rushton (1756--1814). Blinded by trachoma after an outbreak on the slaving ship in which he was a young officer, Rushton returned to Liverpool to scratch a living as a publican, newspaper editor, and finally bookseller and publisher. In his day Rushton was a well-known Liverpool poet and reformer, with an impressively wide range of causes (the Liverpool Blind School, the Liverpool Marine Society, and many radical political groups). Many of his songs, particularly the marine ballads, were very familiar in Britain and...