'Unusual Suspects' tells the lost stories of the right people in the right place at the wrong time: liberal intellectuals in 'free-born' Britain during a decade when enthusiasm for political reform was enough to see their careers hindered irrevocably Preamble: 'Who are these people?' -- I. The Red Decade. Usual and Unusual in 1790s Britain ; Before and After Lives: John Thelwall and William Godwin. -- II. The Forces of Public Opinion. Joseph Priestley, 'Dr. Phlogiston' ; James Montgomery, Radical Moravian. -- III. Keeping the University and Church Safe from Reform. William Frend, 'Frend of Jesus, friend of the Devil' ; Thomas Beddoes, Sr., No Laughing Matter. -- IV. Other Voices, Other Places. The Suspect Gender: Helen Maria Williams, Our Paris Correspondent ; Suspect Nations: William Drennan, 'Let Irishmen remain sulky, grave and watchful' ; Generic Suspicions: Robert Bage, The Novelist Who Was Not. -- V. End-Games. Gilbert Wakefield, The End of Controversy ; James Mackintosh, The Great Apostate: Judas, Brutus, or Thomas?. -- VI. The Romantic Poets and the Police. Spy Nozy in Somerset: 'A Gang of Disaffected Englishmen' ; Coleridge and Thelwall: 'Whispering Tongues Can Poison Truth' ; Wordsworth, The Prelude, and Posterity ; Robert Southey, More Radical Than Thou ; Charles Lamb, Radical in a lamb's cloak ; Robert Burns, 'A Man for a' That' ; Blake's America: The Prophecy that Failed ; Coda: 'What does it signify?'.
|