The Selected Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott

This is the first modern selection of the poetry of Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849), best known in literary history as the self-styled ‘Corn Law Rhymer’ because of his savage satirical poems published in the 1830s. This edition, with a full introduction, note on the text, bibliography, and chronology, together with explanatory notes, brings Elliott’s work into the public domain for the first time since his death. It will be of interest to students of Victorian literature and history, and indeed to anyone interested in the politics, poetics, aesthetics, and social history of the nineteenth century. Elliott’s poetry is of much more than merely historical interest, just as his work is wider in its reach than his concern with the Corn Laws: there is much here that is personal, even elegiac, and much that is celebratory of his beloved Yorkshire countryside, especially around Rotherham, where he was born, and Sheffield, where he spent most of his adult life. His radical views retain their resonance today. This selection includes poems from all the stages of his long career, with lengthy extracts from The Village Patriarch, The Ranter, The Splendid Village, The Corn Law Rhymes, and many of his numerous miscellaneous poems.