Making British Culture: English Readers And The Scottish Enlightenment Book

1 A question of perspective : Scotland and England in the British Enlightenment 3

2 "The self-impanelled" jury of the English court of criticism" : taste and the making of the canon 23

3 "For learning and for arms renown'd" : Scotland in the public mind 48

4 "An ample fund of amusement and improvement" : institutional frameworks for reading and reception 63

5 Readers and their books : why, where, and how did reading happen? 85

6 "One longs to say something" : English readers, Scottish authors, and the contested text 109

7 "Many sketches & scraps of sentiments" : commonplacing and the art of reading 134

8 Copying and co-opting : owning the text 154

9 Reading and meaning : history, travel and political economy 177

10 Misreading and misunderstanding : encountering natural religion and Hume 200

11 The making of British culture : reading identities in the social history of ideas 221

Notes 243

Bibliography 279

Index 309