Galt (1779-1832) has always been in the shadow of writers like Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, but his stock has been rising in recent decades. In her introduction, Hewitt (Univ. of South Florida) highlights Galt's contribution to theoretical and conjectural history through his observations and comments on human institutions and practices, especially in novels like Annals of the Parish and The Ayrshire Legatees. These 15 essays, most by established scholars, help situate and rehabilitate Galt, including beyond the local and national contexts. The volume comprises four sections. The three essays in the first, "Progress, Memory, and Communities," resituate and rehabilitate Galt, his serial works, and his travel writing and epistolary fiction. Section 2, "Conflict and Consensus" (three essays), treats diverse topics like narrative strategies, detective fiction, and trauma theory. Galt's versatility is highlighted in section 3, "Justice and Tolerance" (four essays), in treatments of his medievalism, the "wandering Jew" theme, drama and criticism, and his "magazinity." And section 4, "Identities and Ethics" (four essays), considers "local" matters (cf. The Provost, The Member); circum-Atlantic topics, especially immigration and Canada (Bogle Corbet); European national characters in his travel writings; and Galt the social theorist and Harriet Martineau. The volume offers many new and different approaches to Galt. Summing Up: Recommended.

Choice Reviews

[John Galt] hopefully highlights synergistic aspects of key approaches to Galt presented therein. This is an important body of work that makes a valuable contribution to critical studies of the long eighteenth century, Scottish Enlightenment and Romantic-era literature. It breathes new life into Galt’s work, eliciting a desire to revisit his better known texts, and to seek out those less familiar for a ¢rst reading. In doing so, it is to be hoped that it might also pave the way for the realisation of a much-needed complete modern scholarly edition of Galt.

Scottish Literary Review

[Regina Hewitt has written a] stimulating collection of essays.

European Romantic Review

John Galt’s fiction is enjoying something of a revival, which will be bolstered by John Galt: Observations and Conjectures on Literature, History, and Society, a superb collection of essays edited by Regina Hewitt.

The Year's Work In English Studies

Written by some of the most influential scholars of Scottish romantic literature, the essays in this volume reintroduce John Galt into his crucial roles in shaping that literature. The wide range of approaches, the sheer amount of new information, the excellent balance and blend of readings and historical and biographical context all make this volume a pleasure to read, and a clear call for continued attention to John Galt. Like Galt’s work itself, these essays display humor, elegance, and a keen eye for the social and aesthetic trends of his time period.

Mark Schoenfield, Professor of English, Vanderbilt University

This excellent collection of essays, the first to appear on John Galt in several decades, brilliantly illuminates one of Romanticism's most fascinating and prolific writers. Regina Hewitt and the volume's contributors are to be commended for attending so perceptively to the startling diversity of Galt's life and work, ranging as it does across genres, continents, and Zeitgeists.

Matthew Wickman, Brigham Young University