William Hymers and the Editing of William Collins's Poems, 1765–97

Abstract

This article examines the eighteenth-century reception and editorialising of William Collins's poems, devoting particular attention to the editions that John Langhorne and Anna Barbauld published in 1765 and 1797, respectively. Discussing editorial practices and the ways in which Collins's poems were contextualised in aesthetic but also in literary-historiographical terms, the essay introduces an unpublished edition of the poet's productions by William Hymers. The exploration of this edition-in-the-making focuses on Hymers's attempt at making sense of Collins's descriptive-allegorical mode, his mythopoeia, and the ways in which he could embed the poet's works within an emerging tradition of literary progress.