Welcome to The Common Place: Romantic Women Writers Collection!

The central objective of The Common Place is to facilitate a shared space (or, common place) for collecting short, lesser-known works by women writers of Britain’s Romantic age (roughly, 1780-1850).

In addition to articulating the goal of the collection, the name The Common Place is inspired by the genre of commonplace books that were ordinarily kept during this period. Commonplace books were essentially scrapbooks where individuals would collect their daily musings, including shorts writings, diary entries, poetry, recipes, letters, and tabulations. These eclectic compilations provide a snapshot into Romantic life. Similarly, The Common Place aims to capture a snapshot of Romantic literature by preserving the works in a digital space.

True to its namesake, The Common Place strives for diversity in its collection. The goal is for readers read betwixt and between the texts — allowing for seemingly unrelated works to be placed in conversation, and for critical appendix material to broadly reflect the cultural, social, political, and historical moment of the Romantic era.

Creative Commons Licence