ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My most immediate debt is to friends who have offered generous encouragement: David Erdman, Marilyn Gaull, Hugh Haughton, Seamus Heaney, John Hollo-way and Adam Phillips. I am indebted also to the perceptive critical commentaries of Tim Chilcott and Tom Frosch; to Mark Storey’s splendid edition of Clare’s letters; to Kelsey Thornton for perceptive advice; to John Maynard for his magnanimity; and to Eileen Joyce, Eleanor Nicholes and Jean Paira-Pemberton for their acute observations on Clare’s mind.

I am pleased to acknowledge the generous cooperation of the librarians at Northampton, Peterborough, the Bodleian Library and New York University Library; also of Microform Academic of Wakefield, especially of Michelle Mortimer. My work was supported in part by a grant from New York University’s Research Challenge Fund, and for this I am grateful.

My thanks are due also to Paul Keegan for the invitation, to Peter Sharpe for the loan of his eyes, and to my wife, Judith, for she-knows-what.

I wish to dedicate this book to: Jerome Bruner, David Hammond and Ted Hughes.

Geoffrey Summerfield

New York, 1988