Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1For an instructive example of the enabling nature of coterie relationships, see Jung, “David Mallet and Edward Jerningham: A New Letter” 17–20. 2Chandler's “‘The Athens of England’: Norwich as a Literary Center in the Late Eighteenth Century,” which appeared in 2010, supports Jung's arguments about the significance of coterie relationships to eighteenth-century writers, and his argument about the importance of provincial centers to our understanding of the development of Romanticism (171–72) parallels arguments developed in this article. A version of this article was initially delivered at a conference in 2003. 3See Cohen 24 for a review of the applications of network theory. 4For details of Barnes's life, see his DNB entry. Barnes, it is worth noting, was also a key figure in the development of a seminary in Manchester—The College of Arts and Sciences—and he conceptualized the goals of this seminary in terms that indicate that he saw it as another type of important network node. 5Robert E. Schofield offers a detailed account of the Birmingham Lunar Society's extensive relationships with various coteries and societies, including the Manchester Society (235). Schofield's final two chapters provide valuable information about how a coterie network can lose its influence and impact (see 369–440) and how coterie networks cannot be understood without consideration of their human dynamics. 6For Aikin's life, see Bergstrom 9–11. 7Vol. 4 of the Memoirs provides a list of corresponding members from places such as Halifax, Newcastle-under-Line [sic], Lancaster, Sedbergh, Harrogate, Kendal, and Liverpool (xii). 8See Donald A. Macnaughton, “Roscoe, William (1753–1831),” for Roscoe's life. 9In light of arguments raised in this article, it is noteworthy how often novels written in the 1790s feature a young man of humble background who, though born some distance from an urban center, gains an education that exemplifies Enlightenment views about education. Caleb Williams, for instance, explains that he “devoted much of my time to an endeavour after mechanical invention… . I was desirous of tracing the variety of effects which might be produced from given causes. It was this that made me a sort of natural philosopher” (Godwin 4). Frank Henley, in Thomas Holcroft's Anna St. Ives, is the son of an estate manager. Though he complains that his father “kept [him] in ignorance” and “very much laments the loss of a college education,” he reads progressive Enlightenment philosophy (8–9). The character of Turl in Holcroft's The Adventures of Hugh Trevor fulfills a similar function—Turl, according to the president of Hugh Trevor's college, “was a dangerous young man, and had dared not only to entertain but to make known some very heterodox opinions” (82). 10For Hey's life, see Margaret DeLacy's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 11For evidence that the Manchester Society valued oppositional or alternative views, see Rev. Samuel Hall's “An Attempt to shew, that a Taste for the Beauties of Nature and the fine Arts, has no Influence favourable to Morals” (1: 223–40), Thomas Percival's defense of science in his “On the Pursuits of Experimental Philosophy” (2: 326–27 particularly), or Richard Sharp's “On the Nature and Utility of Eloquence” (3: 307–309; 327–29), in which he defends rhetoric and polite literature against mechanism and commerce. 12For discussions of this issue, see Bergstrom 37–157; Hampson 15–40; and Porter 30–155.