Critics since the eighteenth century have puzzled over the form of James Thomson’s composite long poem, The Seasons (1730, 1744, 1746), its generically hybrid make-up, and its relationship to established genres both Classical and modern. The textual condition of the work is complicated by the fact that it started as a stand-alone poem, Winter (1726), but was subsequently expanded—as part of a revision process that lasted almost two decades—through the addition of three further seasons poem...

The Rise of Animals and the Descent of Man illuminates compelling historical connections between a current fascination with animal life and the promotion of the moral status of non-human animals as ethical subjects deserving our attention and respect, and a deep interest in the animal as agent in eighteenth-century literate culture. It explores how writers, including well-known poets, important authors who mixed art and science, and largely forgotten writers of sermons and children’s stori...