ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My oldest obligations are to my mentors at Goshen College, John D. Roth and Ervin Beck. At Oxford I was lucky to learn Chaucer from Carolyne Larrington and Shakespeare from Frank Romany, but not before Clare Brant hooked me on the eighteenth century in a four-person tutorial where 50 percent of the students went pro in the field (hi, Natalie!). In the Harvard English department I had an all-star team of advisors in Jim Engell, Leo Damrosch, and Leah Price. I learned an enormous amount from talking with them and reading their comments on my work, and even more from watching them teach, think, and write. To my two gracious and generous mentors beyond the committee, Elaine Scarry and Emma Rothschild: thank you.

Among other professors with open doors and helpful thoughts, I thank Nicholas Watson, James Simpson, and Amanda Claybaugh. Harvard also provided me with a fantastic graduate student community: here my greatest debt is to the eighteenth-century and romanticism colloquium and its redoubtable founding coordinator, Matt Ocheltree; thanks also to Dan Shore, Tom Fehse, Fred van der Wyck, Sarah Wagner-McCoy, Sam Foster, and Nick Donofrio. Luke Leafgren and Lindsay Noll went above and beyond the call of friendship in opening their home to me in my final year at the Society. Make new friends and keep the old: my formative grad school years were enriched throughout by dialogue with Peter Fairfield, John Leigh, Peter Hartman, Laura Yoder, Peter Dula, Mark Metzler-Sawin, Lee Good, and Janneken Smucker. Three cheers also to librarians like Laura Farwell Blake and John “Horace Rumpole” Overholt.

Finding my way in the wider world of eighteenth-century studies, I came under the influence and patronage of two major figures in the field, Adam Potkay and Stuart Sherman. Both have given me opportunities and support that the footnotes to their works in what follows cannot convey. I am also grateful for the friendship and assistance of Adam Rounce, Tony Lavopa, Rosemary Dixon, Derek Taylor, Robert Demaria, and Billy Flesch, as well as the opportunities provided by the Yale Boswell Projects and Rare Book School.

At the Harvard Society of Fellows, I found new sources of insight in conversation with Gregory Nagy and Noah Feldman among the grownups and Marta Figlerowicz, Martin Hägglund, Timothy Barnes, Eric Nelson, and Jo Guldi among the kids. Thanks also to Diana Morse, Kelly Katz, and Wally Gilbert.

I know how lucky I am to have wonderful colleagues at Dickinson College. Particular thanks go to Siobhan Philips, Carol Ann Johnston, Wendy Moffat, and Tom Reed. Thanks also to the Dickinson College Research and Development Committee. Beyond the limestone, other institutions and organizations that deserve warm thanks for paying the bills while I was reading books include the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, which generously provided dissertation completion funding; Harvard’s Milton Fund; and Dunster and Lowell Houses.

Material from my first chapter, “The Afterlife and the Spectator,” is reprinted with permission from SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 51, no. 3 (Summer 2011), where it appeared in a slightly different form.

The University of Virginia Press was kind enough to place this book in the illustrious company of winners of the Cowen Memorial Prize, but as I told my editor, Angie Hogan, when I got this news, it was the Hogan Prize of working with her and the Press’s capable staff that I valued more.

I’ve got a big family, and they’re a big part of my life. Thanks and love to Ruth, Timothy, Micah, Hannah, David, Laura, Pierrick, Sebastien, Rebecca, Rose, Bruce, Christian, Andrew, Daniel, Jacob, Katie, Tim, Grant, Miriam, Susy, Dan, Kathy, John, Joshua, Christine, Mary, Maggie, Hannah, Grace, Nathaniel, Miriam, Thomas, Ruth, Esther, Peter, Bethany, Elizabeth, James, Esau, Andrew, Molly, Helen, Albert, Lydia, Emily, David, Elaine, Robert, Amy, Eloise, John, and Suzanne. We remember Arthur and Esther in Columbus and Grant, Ruth, Allen, and Reuben in Lindale.

I also have my own family, which is the biggest part of my life. This book is dedicated to Felix, to Emily, and above all to Laura, with whom being there together is enough.