Thelwall, John

"This book presents two unpublished plays by the English radical, John Thelwall (1764-1834), who, as a leading member of the prorevolutionary London Corresponding Society, was tried and acquitted of high treason in 1794. A close friend of Coleridge, Thelwall was a prolific man of letters who produced novels, poetry, journalism, criticism, scientific and political essays, and autobiography. Both plays, libretti for the London theater, are especially topical today as they use popular literary forms to polemicize critical issues of race, empire, revolution, and sexuality." "Incle and Yarico (1787) comically treats the well-known eighteenth-century love story of Inkle and Yarico, in which an English merchant betrays and sells into slavery an Indian maiden, an innocent "Noble Savage." The play may well be the earliest drama penned specifically in the cause of abolition. The Incas (1792) allegorizes the French Revolution and the English suppression of dissent in portraying a confrontation between the Europeans and the New World. Drawing upon and extending the precepts of Enlightenment radicalism, Thelwall undermines the justifications for empire." "These manuscript plays, recovered from library archives at Yale University and the British Library, add to the growing canon of an author whose reputation continues to be augmented by new discoveries and fresh insights. In separate introductions and explanatory notes, the editors contextualize each play in terms of the London theater, the slave trade controversy, representations of race, and opposition to empire."--BOOK JACKET.

"John Thelwall (1764-1834) was one of the most famous English Jacobins of the eighteenth century. A self-educated poet, novelist, journalist, and politician, Thelwall was a key figure in the democratic movement of the 1790s, a vigorous campaigner for political and social reform, and a noted writer. The Peripatetic, first published in 1793, is a three-volume excursion through multiple genres, with debates about the rights of men and women, the politics of class and race, patriotism and nationhood, and the conflicts of modern culture.". "In this new edition, Judith Thompson makes this significant literary text available to students and scholars. In addition to the complete text of The Peripatetic, Thompson includes a detailed biographical and textual introduction, explanatory notes, bibliographic notes, an index, and maps, all of which help make this important work accessible to modern readers.". "The Peripatetic is an essential work for scholars and students of Jacobinism and romantic literature. Readers will value this new edition that provides an excellent introduction to the literary and political scene of the early romantic period."--BOOK JACKET.