Melancholy Experience in Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century

Arising?from a research project on depression in the eighteenth century, this book discusses the experience of depressive states both in terms of existing modes of thought and expression, and of attempts to describe and live with suffering. It also asks what present-day society can learn about depression from the eighteenth-century experience.

ALLAN INGRAM is Professor of English at the University of Northumbria, UK. He has published widely in the field of eighteenth-century studies and particularly on literature and madness. He was Director of the Leverhulme Trust ‘Before Depression’ project. He is co-general editor and volume co-editor for the forthcoming Depression and Melancholy 1660-1800 set (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

STUART SIM is Visiting Professor of Critical Theory and Long Eighteenth-Century English Literature in the Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Northumbria, UK. He has published widely in his two main subject areas. A co-editor and founder-member of the journal Bunyan Studies (1988- ), he was elected a Fellow of the English Association in 2002.

CLARK LAWLOR is Reader in English Literature at the University of Northumbria, UK, and has published many works on literature and medicine – including Consumption and Literature: The Making of the Romantic Disease (Palgrave, 2006), which was shortlisted for the European Society for the Study of English book prize 2006-8. At present he is writing Depression: The Biography (Oxford University Press, 2011).

RICHARD TERRY is Professor of Eighteenth-Century English Literature at University of Northumbria, UK, having worked for many years at the University of Sunderland. He has published extensively on eighteenth-century poetry and on mock-heroic as a literary device and form.

JOHN BAKER is Maitre de conferences (Senior Lecturer) in English at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France. He has published in French and English on themes associated with the writings of Edward Young and the Night Thoughts, and more generally on poetry of the eighteenth century.

LEIGH WETHERALL-DICKSON is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature at University of Northumbria, UK and began her career there as a post-doctoral Research Associate on the Leverhulme-funded ‘Before Depression 1660-1800’ project. She is currently involved as co-general editor and volume editor for the forthcoming Depression and Melancholy 1660-1800 set (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).