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‘That Odious Class of Men Called Democrats’: Daniel Isaac Eaton and the Romantics 1794–1795
Author(s) -
Davis Michael
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.00100
Subject(s) - publishing , romance , reputation , democracy , history , art history , classics , political science , art , law , literature , politics
Daniel Isaac Eaton was one of London's leading radical publishers during the 1790s, co‐ordinating his printing and bookselling business with his active involvement in the metropolitan reform movement. After enduring a sequence of trials in 1793 and 1794, on charges of publishing seditious libels, Eaton's reputation reached a peak during the years 1794–5. His bookshop functioned as an important rendezvous for radicals living in London and those dispersed more widely throughout the country. After a brief examination of Eaton's democratic connections, this article explores the links, during the mid‐1790s, between the radical publisher and the Romantic poets, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Focusing on the transmission of the manuscript of Southey's Wat Tyler and the publication of the radical journals The Citizen and The Philanthropist , it is shown that Eaton and his publishing business had a significant role to play, either potential or actual, in some of the best‐known plans and projects of the three young poets.