The Collected Letters of Robert Southey (Parts 1-4: 1791-1815)

Research context:
Robert Southey (1774-1843), poet, essayist, historian, biographer, translator and polemicist, was one of the most controversial of all Romantic period writers. He was a central figure in late C18th and early C19th British culture, a time of imperial expansion that saw Britain beset by war abroad and political, social and industrial change at home. Although Southey was a prolific correspondent, his letters have never been published in full. At present, the published letters are available only in out-of-print C19th and C20th selections, the former edited according to C19th conventions, with texts censored and cut. In addition, c.1500 letters have never been published at all.

Aims and objectives:
The Collected Letters will revolutionize this situation, making these important documents available in one place, many for the first time.
The 3200+ letters will be transcribed from original manuscripts, freshly edited and annotated to the very highest standards. c.1500 will be published for the first time, thus providing readers with a vast amount of new information about Southey's life, works and relationships with contemporaries.

The edition will thus fill a huge gap in Southey's writings. It will, furthermore, provide its intended audience of literary scholars and historians with the textual resources essential to future work on his life, works and intersections with his peers - writers, politicians, campaigners and scientists.

Edited by a team of experienced, interdisciplinary scholars, the Collected Letters is an electronic edition and will be published from 2008-12 by the long-established, peer-reviewed specialists Romantic Circles [http://www.rc.umd.edu]. Romantic Circles' involvement is testimony to the project's internationally recognized significance. The technical expertise and financial support provided by Romantic Circles will ensure that the Collected Letters will incorporate the very highest electronic production values and be made available to the widest possible audience on a free-access web-site.

The co-applicants have already carried out a great deal of preliminary research. This application is for funding to allow them to complete the first half of the Collected Letters (Parts 1-4, scheduled for publication 2007-9) and to lay the foundations for the second half. In addition, the project RA will produce supplementary bibliographical databases, making these available on a free-access web-site. They will thus provide a set of unique research tools essential for completion of the Collected Letters and of great value to scholars working on Southey and British Romanticism.

Applications and benefits:
The Collected Letters appears at a time when interest in Southey is increasing rapidly, a situation testified to by the appearance in 2004 of the first major critical edition of his early-mid career poetry (Robert Southey: Poetical Works 1793-1810, eds. Pratt, Fulford and Roberts, 5 vols: Pickering and Chatto) and in 2006 by the publication of a new biography (W. A. Speck, Robert Southey: Man of Letters, Yale UP) and the first ever collection of essays devoted to his impact upon Romantic-period culture (Robert Southey and the Contexts of English Romanticism, ed. Lynda Pratt, Ashgate). The Collected Letters will build upon these achievements, advancing critical understanding of Southey as a major writer central to a re-historicised, public Romanticism.

The edition will be published serially (2007-2012) and at all stages will fill acknowledged gaps both in knowledge of Southey's life and works and in understanding of his relationships with his contemporaries. It will be consulted by scholars from a range of disciplines: literary critics and historians. It will also become the standard scholarly resource for generations of researchers to come, taking its place alongside the collected editions of the correspondence of his peers, Coleridge and Wordsworth.