Journal Volume: 7

Book Review: John Bugg (ed.), The Joseph Johnson Letterbook

John Bugg (ed.) The Joseph Johnson Letterbook Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 272pp. ISBN 978-0-19-964424-7. £65.00 At the start of his introduction to this first-ever edition of Joseph Johnson’s Letterbook, John Bugg describes Johnson’s bookshop as a hub for some of the most important writers and artists of the time, ‘like City Lights in Beat-era

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An Echo of Cowper in Time of War

Recent issues of the journal have included not only full-scale articles on relations between Cowper and other authors but also shorter ones noting brief yet suggestive references to the poet or his work. Another of these citations comes in Vera Brittain’s celebrated autobiography of the First World War period, Testament of Youth, published in 1933.

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John Newton’s Advice on Marriage to John Ryland Jr

Introduction John Newton (1725-1807) had a wide circle of friends with whom he corresponded regularly and to whom he offered counsel. Those receiving advice included the well-known hymn-writer William Cowper (1731- 1800), the evangelical philanthropist, Hannah More (1745-1833), and the anti-slave campaigner, William Wilberforce (1759-1833), as well as a number of Dissenting ministers and friends.

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Sam Roberts of Weston, Cowper’s faithful attendant

While researching family history in the 1980s, I made the interesting discovery that Samuel Roberts, often referred to merely as ‘Sam’, Cowper’s lackey or factotum, was a direct ancestor of mine. His son John James Roberts, a carpenter, married Elizabeth Robinson, from a local Baptist family; their son William Robinson Roberts, who moved from Olney

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Cowper’s Influence on Jane Austen

Fanny Price, the timid heroine of Mansfield Park, never feels at home. Taken at nine from the chaos of her family house in Portsmouth, she grows up in the grandeur of Mansfield Park, under the care of her uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram. But although Sir Thomas at the outset declared, ‘Let

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Book Museum Tickets

Our Museum building remains CLOSED.  We are opening our gardens on limited entry.  The Cowper & Newton Museum gardens will be open to welcome you on Wednesday 5th August 10.30 – 12.15 and Saturday 8th August 10.30 – 12.15

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