Introduction

The introduction locates Polwhele at a confluence of a number of recent themes in late eighteenth-century studies: a nuanced understanding of the cultures of Loyalism; an awareness of the significance of religious thought and expression in the period; and an emphasis on previously overlooked voices from the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. It traces the way these under-appreciated dynamics feature in the assumptions about Polwhele made in the reception of his most notorious work, The Unsex’d Females, not by way of recuperation but in order to demonstrate the challenge to received truths the fuller understanding of Polwhele can offer.