In recent years the canon of eighteenth-century poetry has greatly expanded to include women poets, labouring-class and provincial poets, and many previously unheard voices. Fairer's book takes up the challenge this ought to pose to our traditional understanding of the subject.

This book seeks to question some of the structures, categories, and labels that have given the age its reassuring shape in literary history. In doing so Fairer offers a fresh and detailed look at a wide range of material.