Description:
Philip James Bailey's Festus was an artistic sensation in the Victorian period, a best-seller across the Anglophone world and broadly influential on other writers. This edition marks the first time it has been published in over 100 years, featuring the poem's first lineation and a contextualization of its scientific and theological imagery. Scholars and students will benefit from a general introduction to Bailey's life and work with a thematic guide to the poem that made him famous and appendices containing illustrations from period lithography.
Brief description: Philip James Bailey was an English Spasmodic poet, best known as the author of Festus.
Review Quotes: Scholars of nineteenth-century culture will want to thank Mischa Willett for this beautifully curated critical edition of Philip James Bailey's Festus. Seldom read today, Festus was devoured by Victorian readers from all walks of life and was reverenced in literary circles. Willett's thoughtful introduction unfolds for us the magnificent strangeness, as well as the abiding interest of this remarkable work.--Charles LaPorte, University of Washington