Juvenilia and the Peak District

New books with Brontë-related content:

'The Child is Father of the Man’: The Importance of Juvenilia in the Development of the Author
Ryan Twomey
Publisher: Hes & De Graaf Publishers
ISBN:9789061945215
Year: 2012

`The Child is Father of the Man` discusses the field of nineteenth-century Juvenilia. Specifically, the development of the child writer into the adult author, arguing for increased critical attention toward the early works of now famous writers.
The introductory chapter reviews the role of juvenilia in the writing progression of famous authors and provides a discussion of current academic scholarship in the field of juvenilia. The manuscript then focuses on the individual literary progressions of the nineteenth-century British writers William Harrison Ainsworth, Emily Brontë, and George Eliot, and the Anglo-Irish writer, Maria Edgeworth. The analysis in each chapter has been contextualised within the historical, regional, gothic and lyric modes, and includes an interdisciplinary study in the fields of history, biography, and languages and linguistics. Each chapter is provided as an individual case study espousing the importance of the juvenilia on the development of the later, more publicised, authorship. The concluding chapter discusses the future of the genre with reference to the discoveries outlined in the manuscript, and juxtaposes these findings with the perceived neglect juvenilia has received from the academic community.

A Peak District AnthologyA Literary Companion to Britain's First National Park
Compiled by Roly Smith
Published: 4th October 2012
Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 9780711228870
50 engravings, paintings, photographs

This anthology brings together some of the finest writing about the Peak District through the ages, illustrated by period art works, engravings, vignettes and photographs. Compiled and introduced by Peak District expert Roly Smith, it revives many forgotten descriptions of what many people believe is the finest, most varied and best-loved landscape in the whole of Britain.
From William Camden to Daniel Defoe, Sir Gawain to Lord Byron, literary visitors have long been astonished by the sublime wonders of the Peak. The coming of railways proved another great impetus for writers and tourists. Ruskin extolled the beauties of the Peak, while novelists Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot used closely-observed Peakland settings for some of their most vivid narratives. Topographical writers including Edward Bradbury, Thomas Tudor and James Croston enthusiastically described the delights of the Derbyshire scenery to the ever-increasing stream of Victorian visitors.
The flowering of guidebook and topographical writing in the twentieth century also added to the Peak's outdoor literature, which still rates as among the finest in the country. Many books were produced covertly encouraging what was known as 'the gentle art of trespass'. They included works by GHB Ward, the 'King' of the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers; Derby's pioneering rock climber, Ernest Baker; and Patrick Monkhouse, deputy editor of the Manchester Guardian. Later writers have continued this tradition of fine outdoor writing and are represented here by Hannah Mitchell, Sally Goldsmith, folk singer Ewan Maccoll, Manchester Evening News editor and broadcaster Brian Redhead, and longstanding Guardian Country Diarist Roger Redfern, among others.