Romantic Movement and Literature
Harris, R. W. Romanticism and the Social Order 1780-1830. London: Blandford Press, 1969. A presentation of the social and cultural changes that framed the major literary changes of the period.
Hilles, Frederick W. and Harold Bloom, eds. From Sensibility to Romanticism: Essays Presented to Frederick A. Pottle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. A collection of 26 essays covering the dramatic changes that took place in literature during the period.
James, D. G. The Romantic Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949. A history of the use of mythology in English Romanticism.
Maxwell, Richard and Katie Trumpener. Fiction in the Romantic Period. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. A collection of essays that covers the periods major novel writers and the context from which they wrote.
Pierce, Frederick E. Currents and Eddies in the English Romantic Generation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918. Covers in detail the major literary subdivisions that sprang up during the Romantic period.
Stephens, James, Edwin L. Beck, and Royall H. Snow, eds. English Romantic Poets. New York: American Book Co., 1935. An anthology of English Romantic writers with brief biographical sketches of each.
Willey, Basil. The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953. A detailed analysis of the transformation of thought on nature in the years leading up to the Romantic movement, including a chapter on William Godwin's contributions.
Woods, George Benjamin. English Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement. New York: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1929. An anthology of the major written works of the entire period.
Biographical Criticism
Batchelor, John, ed. The Art of Literary Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Discusses the debate between the reading of biography for enjoyment or for reputable academic study as well as issues with working with biography where there is limited information available.
Benton, Michael. Literary Biography: An Introduction. Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. A study of the use of Biographical Criticism to enhance the study of literature.
Epstein, William H. Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism. Indiana: Perdue University Press, 1991. A historical and critical overview of Biographical Criticism with a chapter devoted to verse during the Romantic Period.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Campbell, Olwen Ward. Shelley and the Unromantics. London: Methuen & Co., 1924. A detailed biography of the life and writings of Percy.
Clarke, George Herbert, ed. Selected Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1907. Excellent introduction to the life and poetry of Percy.
Fogle, Richard Harter. The Imagery of Keats and Shelley. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949. Critical comparison of the poetry of John Keats and Percy Shelley, as well as an analysis of the connections between their writing and their lives.
Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1975. Detailed and authoritative biography of Shelley and the personal connections to his poetry.
Reidman, Donald H. and Sharon B. Powers, eds. Shelley's Poetry and Prose. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1977. Critical collection of Percy's writings including biography.
Smith, Robert Metcalf. The Shelley Legend. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945. An attempt to decipher the truth of Percy's biography from the legends that sprang up around his life and death.
Stenning, Henry J. ed. The Shelley Companion: A Selective Anthology. London: The Saturn Press, 1947. Includes brief biographical sketch.
Thompson, Francis. Shelley. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909. Brief analytical biography of Percy.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Carlson, Julie A. England's First Family of Writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley. Baltimore: Jons Hopkins University Press, 2007. Excellent narrative biography of Mary Shelley and her parents, covering aspects of their entire lives.
Harper, Henry H. Letters of Mary W. Shelley. Boston: The Plimpton Press, 1918. Transcriptions of many of Mary's unpublished personal correspondence.
Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas. The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006. A biography of Mary Shelley paying special attention to the creation of Frankenstein and the connections between the story and her personal life.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. Edited by Maurice Hindle. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Includes an excellent introduction by Hindle that provides biographical overview of Mary's life.
Shelley, Mary. The Last Man. Edited by Hugh J. Luke. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. One of Mary's other novels, published a year and a half after Percy's death, it is a tale about the last surviving human on earth.
Smith, Johanna M. ed. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Frankenstein. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. A collection of critical essays on the novel.