This book traces the development of literary biography in the eighteenth century; how writers' melancholy was probed to explore the inner life. Case studies of a number of significant authors reveal the 1790s as a time of biographical experimentation. Reaction against philosophical biography led to a nineteenth-century taste for romanticized lives.
Introduction PART I: JOHNSON, MELANCHOLY AND EARLY LITERARY BIOGRAPHY, 1640-1791 1. Early Literary Biographies: Walton's Donne to Sprat's Cowley 2. Johnson, Melancholy and Biography 3. Eighteenth-century Melancholy: Boswell and Cheyne, The English Malady PART II: MELANCHOLY AND BIOGRAPHICAL EXPERIMENTATION AROUND 1800 4. Philosophical Biography (1): Godwin's Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft 5. Philosophical Biography (2): Currie's Life of Burns 6. Religious Melancholy: Hayley's Life of Cowper Conclusion Notes Bibliography
