A superb biography that brings a radical literary figure back into the picture . . . a thrilling, brilliant book.—Guardian Women's Writing Eighteenth-Century Studies Times Literary Supplement Choice Studies in English Literature Literary Review Faith and Freedom Times Higher Education London Review of Books Wordsworth Circle Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society Studies in Romanticism Huntington Library Quarterly The Year's Work in English Studies Eighteenth-Century Studies Religion in the Age of Enlightenment Journal of British Studies Age of Johnson Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research
A review cannot do justice to the range covered by a biography of this magnitude. The biography synthesizes a staggering body of research into a tale well told.
The title makes an extraordinary claim—that Anna Letitia Barbauld was a voice of and for the Enlightenment. How can this be said of a woman who, until this enthralling book was written, was known to so few? [The author] presents a thoroughly convincing case for saying it. He does this thanks to his extraordinary knowledge, not just of the life and work of Barbauld, but also of literature, culture and politics from her time (1743 to 1825) up to today.
McCarthy is true to both parts of his work's title: he not only gives us a comprehensive portrait of Anna Barbauld, but helpfully and skillfully places her voice within the social, political, and religious movements of her times. It is hard to imagine that his monumental work will be superseded anytime soon.
Eighteenth-Century Studies - Lisa Vargo
An excellent introduction not only to Barbauld herself but to the politics and culture of her time.
A definitive account of her life, all the more magnificent for its finely grained detail.
Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society
Rewards readers whether they are selectively dipping in or perusing the work from cover to cover . . . McCarthy brings psychology to bear in provocative and insightful ways.
Huntington Library Quarterly
McCarthy blends Barbauld's private, professional, and authorial lives seamlessly, affording readers a context rare in its comprehensiveness . . . . He accomplishes all of this with spirit, grace, and eloquence.
Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research - Nichol Weizenbeck
William McCarthy's twenty years of work on this author, which includes co-editorship of a fine Poems and Selected Poems and Prose, has now borne fruit in this monumental, quietly magnificent biography, which will surely do as much to promote Barbauld's reputation as anyone could dream.
McCarthy establishes Barbauld as a figure of major significance. His magnificent biography will draw many others to her, and give her a new and deserved prominence in Enlightenment and Romantic studies.
A compendious and admiring new biography.
Richly illustrated, compellingly argued, and elegantly written, McCarthy’s biography of Barbauld reminds us that, despite our lip-service topostmodern cynicism . . . transformative scholarship continues to be fundamentally 'Enlightenment' in its values, procedures, and rhetorical forms.
Religion in the Age of Enlightenment
Based on two decades of research and a real mastery of Romantic-era literary culture, the book provides authoritative information not only on Barbauld's life and works but also on Romantic-era politics, education, gender relations, dissenting religion, children's literature, radical politics, the booktrade, mental health, and so on . . . Marked by accessible prose and meticulous documentation, this will be the definitive biography of Barbauld for decades. Essential.
A biography to relish and remember.
The public intellectual, cultural pluralist, 'ecofeminist' and literary innovator we meet in this richly meditated study is a passionately political Anna Barbauld whose concerns speak directly to issues that vex us today.
Times Literary Supplement
This extraordinarily packed, fluidly written biography ought to influence scholars across Romantic studies.
The Year's Work in English Studies
A tour de force . . . Honest, wise, original.
Eighteenth-Century Studies
Some lives intersect with the major events and movements of a time; Barbauld is such a figure . . . . She deserves the epithet of 'Voice of the Enlightenment.' This is an old-fashioned, magisterial biography.
Studies in English Literature
A superb biography that brings a radical literary figure back into the picture . . . a thrilling, brilliant book.
One need not be a literary scholar to find this biography engaging, informative, and provocative, for it explores, via the life of a remarkable 18th and 19th century woman writer, still relevant aesthetic, political, religious, and gender issues.
One leaves this biography with an intimate sense not just of how Barbauld navigated her particular worlds but also of how her interventions shaped individuals and movements in Britain and overseas.
Journal of British Studies - Arianne Chernock
A compendious and admiring new biography.
London Review of Books - Seamus Perry
A biography to relish and remember.
Times Higher Education - Isobel Grundy
Scholars of British literature and women writers will welcome this important study of one of the eighteenth century's foremost writers.
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One leaves this biography with an intimate sense not just of how Barbauld navigated her particular worlds but also of how her interventions shaped individuals and movements in Britain and overseas.
— Arianne Chernock
Journal of British Studies
