Given the reliance of so many Romanticism scholars on digital research throughout the pandemic, it felt like a good time to update this list of online resources from 2020.
This list is still not complete yet, and we aim to continue to develop the list as time goes on. You can therefore still send us further resources to add to the list: britishassociationromantic@gmail.com. We are extremely grateful to Professor Francesca Saggini, who is responsible for the rich representation of Romantic Theatre resources here.
Last updated 27 July 2023.
Please do let us know if we have missed anything!
GENERAL
Internet Archive
A non-profit library containing millions of free books, films, and much more.
Open University Openlearn
Free resources on Romanticism. An OpenLearn search by writer’s name (e.g. Byron, Shelley, De Quincey, Wordsworth, Hoffmann, Austen etc) will return plenty of hits. Search also by module code: specifically A207, AA316. Resources include images, audio, video, animations, BBC programmes and teaching materials including seminar-style and independent activities, all geared to undergraduate level.
Romantic Textualities
An online resource on ‘Teaching Romanticism’, in which contributors consider the ways in which we lecture on and discuss individual authors, whether during author-specific modules or broader period surveys.
- Cook, Daniel |Van Kooy, Dana. Teaching Romanticism XXV: Drama, part 1. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840
- Cook, Daniel |Piccitto, Diane| Van Kooy, Dana. Teaching Romanticism XXVI: Drama, part 2. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840
- Cook, Daniel |Parker, Deven M. | Van Kooy, Dana. Teaching Romanticism XXVII: Drama, part 3. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840
- Cook, Daniel |Dellarosa, Franca | Van Kooy, Dana. Teaching Romanticism XXVIII: Drama, part 4. Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840
- Falk, Michael. ‘Sad Realities: The Romantic Tragedies of Charles Harpur, Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840, 23 (Summer 2020). PDF DOI:10.18573/romtext.65 (9 August 2020). – Discusses two tragedies by Australian author Charles Harpur: The Bushrangers (1853, orig. 1835), a gothic bandit drama, and the incomplete King Saul (c. 1838), apparently inspired by Byron’s Cain.
NeuRoN: Digital Resources for Researching British Romanticism
Part of ‘Romanticism on the Net’. NeuRoN functions as a new nerve center for digital research on British Romanticism, offering a stable, extensive, and up-to-date catalog of web-based resources in the field. NeuRoN lists, describes, and links to online archives, databases, indexes, and editions that are at once sufficiently reliable for scholarly use and directly relevant to British literature and culture of the “Romantic Century” (1750-1850).
- Halliwell, John and Ian Haywood (eds) Romantic Spectacle. A special issue of Romanticism on the Net. Issue 46 (2007)
Romantic Europe: The Virtual Exhibition (RÊVE)
An online research project by European Romanticisms in Association (ERA), supported by BARS. The virtual exhibition is designed to address both an academic and a general audience as an interdisciplinary project showcasing and sharing Romantic texts, objects, and places through collaborations between academic researchers, museums, galleries and other cultural groupings.
The K-SAA Blog
News, articles and interviews from the Keats-Shelley Association of America (K-SAA). Recent features include the ‘What Are You Reading?’ series, which presents interviews with Romanticism scholars.
Romantic London
A research project exploring life and culture in London around the turn of the nineteenth century.
Romantic Circles
A refereed scholarly website devoted to the study of Romantic-period literature and culture.
- Online Syllabi. – Section: DRAMA. Award-winning syllabi in the area of Drama.
- Crochunis, Thomas C. (ed.) Teaching Romantic Drama. Special issue of Romantic Pedagogies Commons (May 2011).
- Hewitt, Regina (ed.) Joanna Baillie and Utopianism. Special issue of Romantic Pedagogies Commons (July 2008)
- Miranda, Omar F. (ed.) On the 200th Anniversary of Byron’s Manfred. Commemorative Essays; With Supplemental Video Material.
- Rzepka, Charles, ed. Obi: A Romantic Circles Praxis Volume. (August 2002).
- Wood, Gillen D’Arcy (ed.). Romanticism and Opera: A Romantic Circles Praxis Volume (May 2005) – A special issue considering the centrality of opera to Georgian culture.
The Real Percy Bysshe Shelley
A website featuring reflections on the philosophy, politics and poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Shelley-Godwin Archive
Providing the digitised manuscripts of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Drama Online
An award-winning, multimedia digital library of drama resources.
Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts
Digital facsimiles of 1100 pages of the manuscripts of Jane Austen’s fictional works.
John Larpent Plays
Online Archive of California Fully searchable database of the official manuscript copies of plays submitted for licensing in Great Britain between 1737 and 1824. From the collection of John Larpent, the Examiner of Plays.
Romantic Closet-Dramas: How to Revolutionise the Theatre
Includes multimedia resources and videos by Benjamin McEvoy
The Romanticism Blog via The Wordsworth Trust
Here you will find lively and engaging explorations of the literature, history and culture of the Romantic period (1750 to 1850) from a variety of contributors.
Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core has made around 700 of its online texts open access until the end of May 2020.
Museo Glauco Lombardi
Museum in Parma with a collection of nineteenth-century art and cultural works. The collection is online (see main link above – there is a search tool), and they also present a virtual tour.
Shelley’s Ghost
Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family (via Bodleian Libraries) explores how the reputation of the Shelley-Godwin family was shaped by the selective release of documents and manuscripts into the public domain. It also provides a fascinating insight into the real lives of a family that was blessed with genius but marred by tragedy. Exhibits can be viewed online.
The World of London Theatre, 1660-1800: Voice of the Shuttle.
By Patricia Craddock and her students.
Catherine Redford’s Romanticism Blog
A blog on Romanticism that also has its own useful list of other online Romanticism resources!
The Free German Hochstift / Frankfurt Goethe Museum
View their digital catalogue, and online project: ‘Das Album der Maxe von Arnim – Souvenirs aus Rom‘ (‘The album of the Maxe von Arnim – souvenirs from Rome’).
The John Clare Society
The journal is free to read online. You can also enjoy the actor Toby Jones reading Clare’s work, and the society have compiled a list of recordings and programmes about Clare.
The 18th-Century Common
A public humanities website for enthusiasts of eighteenth-century studies. The 18th-Century Common offers a public space for sharing the research of scholars who study eighteenth-century cultures with nonacademic readers.
The Online Resource for ERIN, or Europe’s Reception of the Irish Melodies and National Airs: Thomas Moore in Europe
This open-access resource charts the reception of music inspired by Lalla Rookh as well as the reception of the Irish Melodies and the National Airs from 1808-1880 through the following media: a union catalogue, a total of eight OMEKA collections and exhibits, over 50 recordings, and a blog.
The London Stage Database. Burckert, Mattie (Director).
Open access and open-source database that makes it possible to search the seminal, 11-volume The London Stage, 1660-1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment. Compiled from the Playbills, Newspapers and Theatrical Diaries of the Period (Southern Illinois University Press, 1960-1968).
The Keats Letters Project
By publishing each letter on the 200th anniversary of its original composition alongside reflections on that letter by some of today’s most exciting scholars and poets, the Keats Letters Project offers a new Keats for the 21st-century – one inspired by both the material traces of Romantic-period correspondence and our own digital media environment, and one that aims to respond to the playful, heartfelt, and speculative spirit of Keats’s letters.
Romantik: Journal for the Study of Romanticism
Elizabeth Montagu’s Correspondence Online
Digital edition of the letters of Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), Bluestocking socialite and author of the Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear (1769)
Electronic Enlightenment
Collection of 76,000 historical letters from the long eighteenth-century, including the correspondence of Romantic figures including Rousseau, Beaumarchais, and Claire Clairmont
Kirke White.com
Website created by Tim Fulford, dedicated to exploring the life and works of neglected Romantic era labouring class poet, Kirke White (1785-1806).
A Catalogue of British and Irish Labouring-class and Self-taught Poets c. 1700-1900
Hugely comprehensive descriptive listing built up over many years by John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan, giving bibliographical, biographical and critical information on over 2,300 poets.
Rowley’s Ghost: A Checklist of Creative Works Inspired by Thomas Chatterton’s Life and Writings, 1770-2020
Annotated checklist of poems, novels, plays, paintings and other creative works inspired by Chatterton, by John Goodridge.
Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers
Digital edition of the manuscript papers of Bluestocking socialite and courtier, Mary Hamilton (1756-1816).
Enlightenment and Dissent, journal hosted by Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English
Dissenting Academies Online
Peter Cochran’s annotated Byron texts
Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net
The Coleridge Bulletin
Back issues mostly available online.
Works of Mary Hays
Edited by Timothy Whelan.
Timothy Whelan’s Romantic-period resources for the study of religious dissent
CRIER Italian journal for Romantic studies
Articles in various languages including English.
Online tours of Newstead Abbey (1. September 2019 Exhibitions, 2. Edward Burne-Jones) and YouTube videos (example – you can search for others).
Guerra e Historia Pública
A resource in English and Spanish, containing more than 600 resources and other items focusing on the Peninsular War.
‘What Jane Saw’
You are invited to time travel to two art exhibitions witnessed by Jane Austen: the Sir Joshua Reynolds retrospective in 1813 or the Shakespeare Gallery as it looked in 1796.
Resources via British Library – Discovering Literature, Romantics and Victorians / Discovering Literature: Restoration and 18th Century / Picturing Places
THEATRONOMICS: The Business of Theatres, 1732-1809
O’Shaughnessy, David – ERC Grant ID: 101001052 – The EU-financed project will analyse manuscript data from the two major London theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Among the items object of analysis: account books and ledgers, ticket sales, actor salaries etc.
The Censorship of British Theatre, 1737-1843
O’Shaughnessy, David – MSCA Project Grant ID: 333592 . Award-winning website which explores the topic of theatre censorship in Britain in the period 1737-1843.
OpeRaNew – Opening Romanticism: Reimagining Romantic Drama for New Audiences.
Francesca Saggini’s Blog for the MSCA Project. Grant agreement ID: 892230 (PI Francesca Saggini). The publicly financed project uses digital methods and literary analysis to establish an expanding multimedia framework to analyse and disseminate Frances Burney’s plays – this site also contains an extensive bibliography of resources on Romantic Theatre.
Portraits of Actors 1720-1920
Illinois Library Digital Collections – It includes studio portraits and actors posing in character or performing a scene from a play.
Reconstructing Early Circus. Entertainments at Asley’s Amphitheatre, 1768-1833
A fully searchable, multimedia database of newspaper advertisements listing the featured acts at Astley’s from 1768-1833.
Romantic Era Songs
Site maintained by Paul Douglass in collaboration with Frederick Burwick . The project is intended to make vocal music and lyrics of the of the Romantic period more accessible.
Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present.
The Romantic Illustration Network Shakespeare Gallery
Mary L. Shannnon and Dustin Frazier Wood (eds) – Images are arranged alphabetically by play. Site maintained by the University of Roehampton.
The R18 Collective: Re-Activating Restoration & 18th-Century Theatre for the 21st-Century
A multimedia website with research and teaching resources looking at the theatrical repertoire from the 1660s to the 1830s.
ONLINE COURSES
MOOC – Walter Scott: The Man Behind the Monument
This course was produced as a partnership between the Walter Scott Research Centre at the University of Aberdeen and Abbotsford, Scott’s home in the Scottish Borders. It was filmed mostly at Abbotsford and explores topics such as Scott’s ballad collecting, the work behind the production of the Edinburgh Editions of Scott’s fiction and poetry and the relationship between Scott’s collecting activities and creativity.
MOOC – Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity
Includes learning activities focusing on Austen and her novels, but also sections that present extracts from Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More on female education, early biographies and translations of Austen, as well as material on adaptation and more. Many videos were filmed at both Chawton House and the Jane Austen House museum and beyond.
MOOC – Writing the West: Literature and Place
The interactive aspect of this course is no longer present but people can still work their way through the articles, videos, and quizzes. This course focuses on writers from the late eighteenth- and nineteenth centuries associated with Bristol and the West Country: Samuel Coleridge, Robert Southey, Robert Lovell, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Thomas Hardy. It looks at both the importance of place to these writers and the importance of the writers to the culture and economy of the region today.
MOOC – Robert Burns: Poems, Song, and Legacy
Opening soon, this free course from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow, will introduce you to the life, works and global celebrity of Robert Burns. You’ll examine poems, songs, manuscripts, and objects used to commemorate the poet. You’ll also develop your understanding of Robert Burns’s posthumous reputation – from Burns Suppers and Burns Night through to Hogmanay.
ONLINE COURSES: VIDEOS
Resources from Wordsworth and Humphry Davy FutureLearn online courses:
Video: How did the Lake District inspire William Wordsworth’s poem ‘Michael’?
Video: Explore Dove Cottage – once home to Dorothy and William Wordsworth
Video: Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal 3rd September 1800
Video: Wordsworth’s ‘Boat Stealing’
Video: Humphry Davy: Laughing Gas, Literature and the Lamp
Video: Overview of Davy’s Life
Video: Davy’s Nitrous Oxide Experiments
Video: Davy Among the Poets I
Video: Davy Among the Poets II
BARS DIGITAL EVENTS
Since 2021, BARS has regularly organised a series of digital talks and roundtables, all of which are now available on our official Youtube Channel:
Poetic Form and Biological Form – This roundtable addressed the explosion of experimental ideas about form in literature and the natural sciences in the Romantic period, seeking to generate insight and discussion on questions relating to poetics, biology, botany, epistemology and more
The Visual Life of Romantic Theatre – This roundtable showcased some of the innovative work undertaken for The Visual Life of Romantic Theatre, 1780-1830 (U Michigan Press), which offers a sustained examination of the dynamism and vibrancy—what we call “life”—of theatrical spectacle and its impact on society and culture, bringing it from the periphery to the centre in Romantic scholarship.
Radical Connections: A Digital Show and Tell – This roundtable bridged the two fields of revolutionary politics and transnational cultural exchange by looking at the circulation of radical texts in translation, not only across the Channel but also to and from Italian.
Romantic Theatre Studies: State-Of-The Field and New Ways Forward – This roundtable bridged the two fields of revolutionary politics and transnational cultural exchange by looking at the circulation of radical texts in translation, not only across the Channel but also to and from Italian.
New Directions in Romantic Literature and Law – This roundtable charted new directions in Romantic textual engagements with law, justice and juridical discourse. Moving beyond established approaches to theorising the disciplinary relationship between law and literature, the presenters draw on a range of disciplines, including legal and social history, legal theory, media and gender studies, to offer a rich and nuanced account of the complex relationships between literature and law in the Romantic era.
New Directions in Romantic Literature and Law – This roundtable charted new directions in Romantic textual engagements with law, justice and juridical discourse. Moving beyond established approaches to theorising the disciplinary relationship between law and literature, the presenters draw on a range of disciplines, including legal and social history, legal theory, media and gender studies, to offer a rich and nuanced account of the complex relationships between literature and law in the Romantic era.
Digital Burns Night II – After the success of the first Digital Burns Night Supper, this event is returned in 2022. Our virtual Burns Night followed the order of toasts and entertainments at a traditional Burns Supper to structure an academic event celebrating Burns, Scotland, and Romanticism.
Irish Women, Bodies, and the Gothic Tradition – This roundtable considered the paradoxical role of women and feminized others in the long tradition of the Irish Gothic, through frameworks of spectrality and absence, hypersexualisation, national community, and biopolitics.
Zany Romanticism – This roundtable focused on Romantic comedy, including to its particular manifestations and embodiments, including in the zany. Building on the work of other scholars who’ve illuminated our sense of Romantic satire, theater, and other comic writing, this roundtable addressed the ways that Romantic writers understand aesthetic production as a tense commingling of “artful play” and “affective labor.”
Re-envisioning Romantic Publishing – The 11th event in the BARS Digital Events Series took place on Thursday 8th July. This roundtable addressed trends in Romantic and Romantic-period studies journal publishing, and helped to demystify the practices of journal publishing. It is ideal for graduate students and early career researchers!
Dialogues and Receptions – This roundtable traced the conversations and legacies surrounding Romantic writers such as William Blake, Percy Shelley, William Hazlitt, Alexander Pope, Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. The speakers shed new light on these writers, often by looking at the nexus of connections and influences between these individuals.
State of the Arts: Reframing the Visual in Romantic Period Studies – Scholars of British Romantic literature have become increasingly attentive to the material and cultural contexts inhabited by the period’s authors. This roundtable was held on the 27th May 2021 and showcased some of the innovative work being undertaken in this field for The Edinburgh Companion to Romanticism and the Arts.
Geo & Eco- Criticism: Returning to Romantic Italy – On the 15th of April the BARS Digital Events Series hosted a zoom roundtable in colloboration with the CISR (Inter-University Centre for the Study of Romanticism) which explored the possibilities of combining ecocritical and geocritical approaches. Our speakers proposed this methodological intersection as a way of unlocking new features of Romantic-period treatments of the connections between the environment and humans, their identities, activities, and institutions.
Romantic Forms – During this roundtable our speakers explored the myriad forms in which Romantic writers wrote, connecting these to the topics and arguments found within texts. It looks at how form impacted on and was knowingly used to express ideologies and politics in texts by Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Inchbald, Frances Burney, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Romanticism and the Museum – During this event our speakers discussed the challenges facing museums and heritage institutions and organisations in 2021. It drew on the speakers’ experiences of Romantic writers’ house museums and explore diversifying audiences, digital exhibitions and communications; funding; collections: care and promotion; and the relationship between academia and museums.
The Late Mary Shelley – During the session, our guests belatedly marked the anniversary of Shelley’s death on February 1st by discussing her later life and works, celebrating Shelley’s many achievements after Frankenstein.
Burns Night Supper – The Burns Supper is a tradition with its roots in the Romantic period. We propose using the order of toasts and entertainments at a Burns Supper to structure an academic event celebrating Scottish Romanticism with an interdisciplinary excursus on whisky production in the Romantic period.
Digital Teaching in Romantic Studies – During the session, our guests discussed pedagogy and teaching styles for online learning, any challenges they’ve encountered with teaching online, innovative and effective online teaching methods, and much more. The description of this video also includes a list of links to all the resources mentioned.
Digital Editions in Romantic Studies – During this session, our guests introduced and discussed the work they have undertaken on creating and providing digital collections, their rationales for doing so, any challenges faced by such projects, and the benefits and advantages of digital editions and digital networks in research, in teaching, and in outreach and dissemination.
Romantic Studies in 2020: Perspectives on the Field – During this 80-minute session, our guests presented perspectives on their current research and teaching before discussing the challenges faced by scholars and students of Romanticism in 2020.
THE BARS BLOG
Several resources can also be found here on the BARS Blog, including:
The ‘Archive Spotlight’ series
Blog posts from researchers documenting their experiences of using an archive to look at Romanticism-related materials, and reviews of Romantic heritage sites.
The ‘Five Questions’ series
Authors of new monographs discuss their research in Romanticism.
The ‘On This Day’ series
Blog posts celebrating the 200th anniversary of literary and historical events of the Romantic period.
The ‘Romantic Reimaginings’ series
A series of blogs that seeks to explore the ways in which texts of the Romantic era continue to resonate.
The ‘Romanticism Now’ series
A series of blogs that engage with Romantic themes and topics in Pop Culture.
OPEN ACCESS MONOGRAPHS
Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet by Bethan Roberts
Jane Austen Speaks Norwegian: The Challenges of Literary Translation by Marie N. Sørbø
Irony and Idyll: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park on Screen by Marie N. Sørbø (eBook)
Death Rights: Romantic Suicide, Race, and the Bounds of the Liberalism by Deanna P. Koretsky (eBook)
Marking Time: Romanticism & Evolution by Joel Faflak (eBook)
Women’s Literary Networks and Romanticism: A Tribe of Authoresses by Andrew Winckles (eBook)
Coleridge’s Laws: A Study of Coleridge in Malta by Barry Hough, Howard Davis, Michael John Kooy (eBook)
The Theatre of Shelley by Jacqueline Mulhallen (eBook)
The Theatre of Shelley by Jacqueline Mulhallen (eBook)
Reclaiming Romanticism: Towards an Ecopoetics of Decolonization by Kate Rigby (eBook)
Cultures of Improvement in Scottish Romanticism, 1707-1840 ed. Alex Benchimol, Gerard Lee McKeever (eBook)
National Romanticism: The Formation of National Movements by Balazs Trencsenyi, Michal Kopecek (eBook)
Romanticism and Time: Literary Temporalities ed. Sophie Laniel-Musitelli, Céline Sabiron
The Idea of Infancy in Nineteenth-Century British Poetry: Romanticism, Subjectivity, Form by D.B Ruderman
Fonthill Recovered A Cultural History ed. Caroline Dakers
Before Blackwood’s: Scottish Journalism in the Age of Enlightenment by Rhona Brown, Alex Benchimol and David Shuttle
Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds ed. David H Guston, Ed Finn, Jason Scott Robert
Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics ed. Karl Axelsson, Camilla Flodin, Matthias Pirholt
Destins de femmes: French Women Writers, 1750-1850 by John Claiborne Isbell
An Outline of Romanticism in the West by John Claiborne Isbell
A list of recent Romanticism publications can be found here (via K-SAA).
ARTICLES
Burckert, Mattie. “Recovering the London Stage Information Bank: Lessons from an Early Humanities Computing Project.” DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly 11, 3 (2017).
Crochunis Thomas & Michael Eberle-Sinatra. “Putting Plays (And More) In Cyberspace: An Overview of the British Women Playwrights around 1800 Project,” European Romantic Review, 14:1 (2003), 117-131, DOI: 10.1080/10509580303680.
Crochunis, Thomas C. (ed.) British Women Playwrights around 1800: New Paradigms and Recoveries. A special issue of Romanticism on the Net. Issue 12 (1998) – A series of essays looking at the “paradigm shifts” in the areas of women’s playwriting and theatre authorship.
Murray, Julie. “At the Surface of Romantic Interiority: Joanna Baillie’s Orra.” Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 56 (november 2009)
Nielsen, Wendy, “A Tragic Farce: Revolutionary Women in Elizabeth Inchbald’s The Massacre and European Drama.” European Romantic Review 17.3 (Summer 2006): 275-88.” (2006). Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 16.
Saggini, Francesca. The transforming muses: stage appropriations of the gothic novel in the 1790s. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow (2009).
Urban, Eliza Dickinson. “Spectral Spectacle: Traps, Disappearances, and Disembodiment in Nineteenth-Century British Melodrama.” Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film 46, 1 (May 2019): 18–37. (Open Epub)
OTHER FILM/VIDEO
‘Byron and Greece: A Poet’s Fight for Freedom’
A documentary about Byron’s last journey (free with a subscription to Amazon Prime).
Shelley’s The Cenci
As performed on Dec. 4, 2019 in London, Ontario (a #Romantics200 event). The theatre program at Western University staged this production of Shelley’s play from December 4-7 2019 at TAPS: The Arts Project Centre for Creativity.
List curated by Anna Mercer, Jack Orchard, Amy Wilcockson, Rosie Whitcombe, and Isabelle Murray.
You might consider mentioning “Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present”, orlando.cambridge.org/, as an unrivalled source for earlier and later influences on and intertextualities with Romantic-era writers, as well as relationships among them.
Thank you! Added