This is a revisionist study of the literary and visual representation of the nation in the century following the formation of the British state. It argues that the most engaging accounts of Great Britain subject their imagery to sustained artistic pressure, threatening to dismantle the national vision at the moment of its construction.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Thomson's Vision of Britannia 2. Smollett and Dialectical Nationalism 3. Ramsay, Hume, and British Portraiture 4. Ossian, Wolfe, and the Death of Heroism 5. Boswell: Self, Text, Nation 6. Scott, Turner, and the Vision of North Britain Bibliography Index
