Views on the Cosmos: 
        18th-Century British Writers Perceive the Globe
 

Welcome to Britain's world in the 18th century.

This site provides information on how British authors wrote about the rest of the world during the 17th and 18th centuries.  Authors include Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Olaudah Equiano, Tobias Smollett, George Colman, and Jonathan Swift, among others.  It places their writings in contexts, too, documenting the historical, literary, cultural, artistic, and economic ideas that helped produce these texts in their particular forms.  This site also presents some literary analysis of the way British perceptions are expressed within these texts. The information on this site is not meant to be exhaustive, and we are hoping that future students can add to it, perhaps by providing ways in which the "empire writes back"; the perceptions of the British themselves by these other global groups.

In providing this material, we hope that it will help readers gain a better understanding of British perceptions of the world during this period, as we relate texts to historical information and consider what shapes the ways writers perceive and how that perception is expressed.  Our site also explores misperceptions, inquiring into the idea of the "other" in the past—and today.  By presenting this information, we hope that our readers will be better equipped to examine the images of different regions, countries, and groups that surround us in the media right now.

We considered that this site might be of most use to literary professionals, college English majors, middle school & high school students, book clubs, people interested in British and world history in the 18th century.  And, of course, we welcome anyone else.  Come travel the globe in the 18th century with the British.

This site was conceived and constructed by students in West Chester University's Literature Seminar Lit400.02, "18th-Century England ... and the Rest of the Cosmos" in Fall 2003.  Participants:

Timothy Greenberg
Emily Holden
Julia Inslee
Peggy Kaplin
Tom Karbowski
Christine Kozuba
Suzanne Lauer
Paul Mudd
April Olinchak
Jamie Pena
Joshua Pollack
Liz Roberts
Krista Schroth
Cheryl Wanko

 World Map image source:  UT Library Online – Perry-Castañeda Map Collection. 19 Sept. 2003. <http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/world_cyclopedia_1820.jpg>

Page last modified 12-11-03.