Routledge Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Cultural Formations: The Eighteenth Century)

The Reliques is a collection of ballads, songs, romances and historical poetry, annotated with Percy's literary-antiquarian observations. It is a seminal text in English literature, one that profoundly influenced writers from Thomas Chatterton to Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats and the Pre-Raphaelites. Until now, the first edition has not been available to scholars of the eighteenth century and British and European Romanticism. A superb example of period publishing, it includes scarce proofsheets, excluded from the original edition, as well as new critical and bibliographical introduction. Review 'These are handsome volumes to possess, and an indispensable addition to any library.' - Landeg White - Times Literary Supplement '...a valuable reprint of the original Reliques .' - Folk Music Journal '[This new edition] should restore Reliques to their rightful place in Romantic criticism after a long period in which the references to Percy have become somewhat formal and perfunctory.' - Landeg White - Times Literary Supplement 'This reprint of Percy's Reliques , with Nick Groom's scholarly work - which extends to a valuable appendix to Volume 3 on the late changes Percy made in and after the first edition - will be an invaluable tool in considering the stages by which the medieval was incorporated into the structures of national culture and ideology.' - Stephen Knight - Cardiff University