Kirkyard Romanticism

...the thematic strain of Sharp’s Kirkyard Romanticism provides a foundational overview of nineteenth-century Scottish literature and culture and is a welcome addition to the Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism series. -- Beth Brigham, Northumbria University * Modern Language Review *
In summary, the authors and different works covered within the volume are excellent... whilst the conjunction of historical and contextual information with literary analysis is coherent. Much work has been done on graveyard prose and poetry, death in Scottish literature and the wider literature of the Romantic period by critics such as Tim Marshall, Yael Shapira and Paul Westover. Sharp’s monograph slots seamlessly alongside these works as an engaging and original view of Scottish Romanticism, viewed through the lens of the kirkyard. -- Amy Wilcockson, Queen Mary University of London * Scottish Literary Review *
Sharp displays an impressive range in a first book, shifting across a long nineteenth century and looking beyond Scotland to several colonial contexts in her pursuit of the influence of this Blackwoodian mode... what emerges here improves our understanding of the absent presence of the dead in the developing forms of nineteenth-century nationalism. -- Gerard Lee McKeever, University of Edinburgh * The Review of English Studies *
In Kirkyard Romanticism, Sharp transcends the national to make a significant contribution to nationhood theory, as well as 19th-century Scottish literature and politics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. -- J. Walker, emeritus, Queen's University at Kingston * CHOICE *
Sarah Sharp’s brilliant account of a Blackwood’s-based 'Kirkyard School' of fiction shows how Romantic-era Scotland figured as a repository for regional values at risk of being forgotten in modernity’s sweep. In so doing, the book helpfully reconnects the period with a longer nineteenth century history of both literary and colonial engagements with the dead. -- Anthony Jarrells, University of South Carolina