On the Romantics

This is a nice little book beautifully illustrated, consisting of extracts from A Winter's Britain by Margaret Drabble, first published in 1979:

Margaret Drabble On The Romantics

by Margaret Drabble

Thames & Hudson. Pocket Perspectives

ISBN: 9780500029497

May 2025

Margaret Drabble on the Romantics presents an image of Britain as seen through the eyes of some of its most celebrated authors. Many of the Romantics, as well as their successors, are closely associated with particular landscapes – the Wordsworths with the Lake District, Walter Scott with the Scottish Borders, the Brontë sisters with West Yorkshire. Margaret Drabble deepens our understanding of this connection, unpacking the Romantics' fascination with all varieties of rural landscape, from roaring seas to tranquil villages, while also exploring their writing's subtler associations.

Herself a star in the literary firmament, Drabble illuminates how this love of place fashioned some of the Romantics' greatest works. She considers the resonances of myth and legend, art and earlier literature that the Romantics found in places such as North Wales and Cornwall and investigates how their writing has, in turn, shaped our visual attitudes, taste in landscape and relation to nature.

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronté's Shirley and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey are quoted in the book and a couple of stunning illustrations: Fay Goodwin's Top Withins near Hawoth, Yorkshire (1977) and a picture of the original manuscript (with watercolours) "There once was a little girl, and her name was Ane' (1826? or 1828?)