'Dignified sensibility and friendly exertion': Joseph Ritson and George Ellis's Metrical Romance(ë)s

Abstract

The first decade of the nineteenth century saw an unprecedented number of publications of medieval romance in Britain, as a local manifestation of the recovery of vernacular literature taking place across Europe. Setting out to rescue texts from increasingly accessible public libraries, the early nineteenth-century editors struggled to find publishers willing to risk the publication of medieval romance, despite changing tastes. Drawing on contemporary
correspondence, this article will use an instance of conflict and ill-humour to explore the mutually supportive collaborative networks that made these publications possible and, briefly, allowed even more ambitious projects to be planned.