Book excerpt: Romantic Writings is an ideal introduction to the cultural phenomenon of Romanticism - one of the most important European literary movements and the cradle of 'Modern' culture. Here you will find an accessible introduction to the well-known male Romantic writers - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. Alongside are chapters dealing with poems by Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Ann Barbauld, Elizabeth Barrett Browning which challenge the idea that these men are the only Romantic writers. As a further counterpoint the book also includes discussion of two German Romantic short stories by Kleist and Hoffman. Throughout, close-reading of texts is matched by an insistence on reading them in their historical context. Romantic Writings offers invaluable discussions of issues such as the notion of the Romantic artist; colonialism and the exotic; and the particular situation of women writers and readers.