The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing 1660–1789 by Paul Baines, Julian Ferraro, and Pat Rogers (review)

Despite its title, the encyclopedia focuses almost entirely on writers rather than writing, with entries on almost 500 British writers, printers, booksellers between 1660 and 1789. Marginalized writers receive generous attention; nearly twenty percent of the writers are women, and entries for lesser-known names are fleshed out. As the editors note, the categories of “the literary” were more “fluid” than they are today, so it does not surprise to see the Earl of Shaftesbury and Adam Smith well represented. The twelve-page Introduction (preceded by a timeline) includes useful sections on the historical and political background, the predominant genres of the age, and the publishing industry.

A “kind of browsing sense of interconnection between writers” stands out. Many names have multiple entries because of an elaborate cross-referencing of relationships and connections. As befits the nature of encyclopedias, complex relationships are rendered succinctly rather than subtly: thus, about Burke and Johnson, we have one quite valid sentence: “In all these views Burke was at odds with Johnson, who wrote pamphlets on the Tory side; the two men nonetheless continued on friendly terms.” Johnson’s relationship with John Wesley is to the point: “Despite Samuel Johnson’s suspicion of the ‘inner light’ and personal sense of salvation claimed by Methodists, he admired Wesley’s fervent piety and energetic activity. Johnson said to James Boswell (another skeptical admirer) that he regretted that Wesley was never at leisure to pursue a conversation to its end.” Succinct histories, even in distilled form, hit the mark, as in the account of the Richardson-Fielding interaction: “As a novelist, Fielding was always set directly against Richardson; Fielding was regarded as comic, educated, literary, and authoritative, Richardson as serious, subjective, and authentic.” Alliances of a more personal nature such as the relationship between Pope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the personal controversies swirling around Swift and Sterne, are recounted with measured certainty and conjecture.

Information on the major figures is sufficient, given the inherent limitations of the encyclopedia format. The bulky entry on Swift, for example, manages to cover his lesser-known works in detail as well as his better-known pieces. Pope’s Essay on Man and The Dunciad are both adequately, if briefly, discussed.

As with any good collection of biographical essays, one finds many humanizing snippets that bring the century closer to us than any accumulation of facts and dates can do. Of Elizabeth Montagu’s marriage to Edward Montagu, we are told, “They had one son, John, who lived just over a year.” A happier detail is offered in the account of Charlotte Lennox (one of the rare women, according to her entry, cited in Johnson’s Dictionary), whose first novel, The Life of Harriot Stuart, Written by Herself (1750) “was celebrated by Samuel Johnson’s Ivy Lane Club with an all-night party in her honor.”

The volume reminds us why we fell in love with this period.