This is the first book to examine how Romantic writers transformed poetic collections to reach new audiences. In a series of case studies, Michael Gamer shows Romantic poets to be fundamentally social authors: working closely with booksellers, intimately involved in literary production, and resolutely concerned with current readers even as they presented themselves as disinterested artists writing for posterity. Exploding the myth of Romantic poets as naive, unworldly, or unconcerned with the practical aspects of literary production, this study shows them instead to be engaged with intellectual property, profit and loss, and the power of reprinting to reshape literary reputation. Gamer offers a fresh perspective on how we think about poetic revision, placing it between aesthetic and economic registers and foregrounding the centrality of poetic collections rather than individual poems to the construction of literary careers.

'A sure sign of a good critical book is surprise that it hasn’t been written before. This is so with Michael Gamer’s Romanticism, Self-Canonization, and the Business of Poetry … The argument is cogent, persuasive, and yet fresh.'

Octavia Cox Source: Studies in Romanticism

'… expertly and persuasively argued. … Gamer’s excellent book succeeds in getting readers thinking about the lifetimes of hustle involved in posthumous fame and Romantic poetry’s bibliographic version of the greatest hits album or box set. Romanticism, Self-Canonization, and the Business of Poetry reveals that the iterative compilation is not merely derivative and that curating for a shot at immortality is literary art as much as business.'

Yohei Igarashi Source: Modern Philology Journal

'Gamer focuses on Romantic writers' employment of publishing and advertising networks, noticing how the poets cannily designed their collections of previously published work to draw in audiences and maximize profits.'

Talia Schaffer Source: Studies in English Literature

'… this study produces remarkable insights, such as its argument that 'Julian and Maddalo', the first poem in Posthumous Poems, is placed where it is to refute established stereotypes of Shelley’s character. Readings of this quality occur throughout, and prove that Michael Gamer’s study is a rare thing: an original analysis that should influence how we teach and how we read Romantic poetry.'

Will Bowers Source: The Times Literary Supplement

'… quite simply one of the most insightful, lucid, and absorbing new studies of British Romanticism to appear in recent memory. Offering one groundbreaking archival discovery after another - many of which yield provocative new readings of major authors and texts … a remarkably cohesive and clear scholarly study which offers a masterclass in how to engage with previous scholarship on the topic both generously and incisively.'

Nicholas Mason Source: European Romantic Review

'… the ultimate quality of Gamer’s study resides in the acuity of its close readings, and in its attentiveness to a novel range of authors.'

Andrew Raven Source: British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (bsls.ac.uk)