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      Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry

      By J.R. de J. Jackson

      Announcement

      We welcome 2025 with the good news that all the named authors (over 5000 of them) who were included in the Jackson Bibliography up to the end of 2024 now have biographical headnotes with a maximum length of 400 words. This work began seven years ago and has evolved from the basic presentation of facts to complex life stories pieced together, more often than not for the first time, from primary sources. Where we had to confess failure, we hope to have exposed problems and to have provided future users with a starting-point for their investigations.

       

      An earlier appeal for contributors attracted several specialists who wrote one or more headnotes each. Those headnotes are identified by the contributors' initials, and the full list of names appears at the Contributors tab. We are very grateful to those expert volunteers. Almost all the entries, however, were written by four people--in order of recruitment to the project, Heather Jackson, Sharon Ragaz, Andrew Ashfield, and Jonathan Cutmore. 

       

      We expect to continue to add content to the site--new book records, new authors, and improved headnotes where new information or new resources have become available. We welcome enquiries and suggestions by way of the Contact tab. Technical issues should also be reported there. Be sure to include your email address.

      This bibliography, which is based on first-hand examination of copies, aims to provide descriptions of all extant editions of all verse in English published for the first time between 1770 and 1835, amounting to approximately 23,000 volumes. The only significant restriction is that "volume" is defined as a book consisting of at least ten pages of original verse; thus the inclusion of anthologies of old and new poetry or of books that mix prose and verse depends on their containing at least ten pages of verse not published before 1770. Verse contained in works of prose fiction such as that of Ann Radcliffe is omitted unless collected as poetry in a separate publication. Following the practice of the British Library, annuals and gift books are excluded as a form of periodical. The bibliography is searchable in a number of ways: see the User Guide and Introduction for detailed explanations.