Overview

This volume of essays reassesses William Hayley’s contribution to the literary and artistic history of the long eighteenth century and situates his work and influence in a broader cultural and, specifically, life writing context. In his biographies of Milton, Cowper, Romney, Thomas Alphonso Hayley, and in his autobiography, Hayley is concerned with recuperating and memorializing his subjects. He considers that the duty of the biographer is to present unvarnished accounts. This volume brings together scholars in a variety of disciplines and geographies to re-examine Hayley’s relationships with some of the most important poets, writers and artists in British history – including William Blake and Jane Austen – and to show how he wrote about people, and how people have written about him.  It restores Hayley as a valuable, yet often misunderstood figure whose literary networks, redefinition of the genre of biography, and intellectual influence extend across the culture of the Romantic period.