Literary Relations: Kinship and the Canon, 1660-1830

Literary Relations argues that kinship relations between writers, both literal and figurative, played a central part in the creation of a national tradition of English literature. Through studies of writing relationships, including those between William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Henry and Sarah Fielding, Frances and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, it shows that kinship between writers played a significant role not just in individual livesbut in the formation of generic traditions. As writers looked back to founding fathers, and hoped to have writing sons, the