ABSTRACT
Jane Austen and the poet George Crabbe have often been linked together as the two great anti-Romantics of the early nineteenth century, but this affinity, hinted at by critics, has never really been explored. They were two authors who published all their major work in the so-called 'Romantic Age', yet without being 'Romantics' themselves. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights some of the ways in which literary and economic discourses during the Napoleonic Wars had in common a concern with spatial economy, and even at times possessed a shared vocabulary. It focuses on three of Humphry Repton's Red Books. The book demonstrates how certain wartime economic preoccupations are present even in more 'marginal' writings of the period. The approach to Crabbe and Austen is one which combines close reading with fresh contextual and historical analysis.
