British Romanticism in the Museum Age: A Review of Recent Scholarship Eric Gidal University of Iowa Abstract This essay surveys recent scholarship in British Romantic literature and culture that emphasizes the interrelations between collections, exhibitions, and museums and the poetry, novels, and aesthetic philosophy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It summarizes the scope and argument of important works of literary and cultural criticism and lists many related studies from other disciplines while providing a general overview of the historical and theoretical issues governing current discussions of Romantic-era exhibitionary culture. From the British Museum to Don Saltero’s Coffeehouse, from the galleries of the Royal Academy to the gardens of Vauxhall, from the tombs of Westminster Abbey to the booths of Southwark Fair, Romantic-era London displayed a vast array of exhibitions and shows that contributed to a visual culture expanding at an unprecedented rate. Whether housed within the institutional sanction of museums and abbeys or proffered on the streets and in commercial galleries, a motley assemblage of antiquities, rarities, and curiosities provided both entertainment and instruction to an increasingly inclusive public audience whose appetite for novelty could seem insatiable. This was the era of famous collectors, from the archeological enthusiasts Sir William Hamilton and Giovanni Belzoni to the antiquarian fetishists Charley Townley and Richard Payne Knight, as well as a surging popularity in amateur collecting – everything from fossils and flowers to hummingbirds, engravings, and Napoleonic relics. It was the era that saw the foundation of the public museum – the British Museum in 1753, the Louvre in 1793, and the National Gallery in 1824 – a new institution for the idealization and self-presentation of the modern nation state but also a site for radical transformations in the exhibition and reception of art and antiquities. It was also the era that saw the proliferation of more heterogeneous and idiosyncratic displays at William Bullock’s Egyptian Hall, Robert Barker’s Panorama, and Sir John Soane’s House and Museum. If it is difficult to convey the sheer abundance and proliferation of collections and exhibitions in British culture during the Romantic period, it is even more difficult to © Blackwell Publishing 2006 Literature Compass 3/2 (2006): 127–137, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00301.x