This book examines the relationship between Romantic-period writing and the activity that Samuel Taylor Coleridge christened 'mountaineering' in 1802. It argues that mountaineering developed as a pursuit in Britain during the Romantic era, earlier than is generally recognised, and shows how writers including William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Ann Radcliffe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Walter Scott were central to the activity's evolution. It explores how the desire for physical ascent shaped Romantic-period literary culture and investigates how the figure of the mountaineer became crucial to creative identities and literary outputs. Illustrated with 25 images from the period, the book shows how mountaineering in Britain had its origins in scientific research, antiquarian travel, and the search for the picturesque and the sublime. It considers how writers engaged with mountaineering's power dynamics and investigates issues including the politics of the summit view (what Wordsworth terms 'visual sovereignty'), the relationships between different types of 'mountaineers', and the role of women in the developing cultures of ascent. Placing the work of canonical writers alongside a wide range of other types of mountaineering literature, this book reassesses key Romantic-period terms and ideas, such as vision, insight, elevation, revelation, transcendence, and the sublime. It opens up new ways of understanding the relationship between Romantic-period writers and the world that they experienced through their feet and hands, as well as their eyes, as they moved through the challenging landscapes of the British mountains.

About the Author
Simon Bainbridge is Professor of Romantic Studies at the University of Lancaster. He has previously worked at the Universities of York, Manchester, and Keele. He is a specialist in the literature of the Romantic period, particularly in relation to its historical context. He is the author of the monographs Napoleon and English Romanticism (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and British Poetry and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Oxford University Press, 2003) and is the editor of Romanticism: A Sourcebook (Palgrave, 2008). He has published numerous essays on Romantic-period literature. He has served as President of the British Association for Romantic Studies and is currently a Trustee of the Wordsworth Trust.

Reviews
This is a genuinely original insight. It is one of many such pleasures in this illuminating study of the literary culture of mountaineering in its formative years. Bainbridge shows how these early summiteers relished the novel perspectives that an elevated viewpoint gave them on the landscape spread out below; in similar fashion, his lucid, well-researched book affords surprising new angles on writers and texts that we are used to seeing through a different critical lens. * Robin Jarvis, University of the West of England, Modern Language Review *
This book furthers our understanding of Romantic mountaineering by showing us the sheer variety of mountain experiences-a compendium of sites of fascination. Simon Bainbridge's book will serve as the necessary point of departure for any student or scholar interested in the literature of Romantic mountaineering. * Alan Vardy, The Review of English Studies *
informative and original...a major addition to the considerable secondary literature on romanticism... * Nigel Leask, BARS Bulletin and Review *
Bainbridge's case study of Dorothy Wordsworth's evolution as a mountaineering writer in this book is one of its many revelations that will particularly inform those interested in ecofeminism, corporality, material ecocriticism, animism and re-enchantment. * Terry Gifford, Green Papers *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198857891
Author Simon Bainbridge
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 638g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 164mm * 22mm