Digital Editions

Erasmus Darwin wrote The Loves of the Plants (1789) to popularize the Linnaean sexual system of botanical taxonomy by portraying the romances of personified stamens and pistils. But the text far exceeds this purpose, and with its combination of ornate verse, ample polymathic footnotes, and philosophical interludes, is a hybrid work of…

Part Seven focuses on the years when the ‘Lake Poet’, biographer, historian and social commentator Robert Southey was one of the most high-profile, and controversial, authors working in Britain.  Drawing on manuscripts from over 100 international archives, it makes available for the…

Dorothy Wordsworth was an active poet for much of her life. Unlike her brother, William, however, she only published a few of her poems during her lifetime. This does not mean that her verse was unknown, as she shared her poems with her family members and social circle. She also returned to her poems throughout her adult life, recopying,…

This project has been motivated by two central questions: first, why would Godwin—anarchist philosopher, political advocate, and successful novelist and dramatist—decide in the middle of his career to pseudonymously author, publish, and sell children's books? Second, what is the relationship between Godwin's children's books and his other…