In the first collection devoted to mentoring relationships in British literature and culture, the editor and contributors offer a fresh lens through which to observe familiar and lesser known authors and texts. Employing a variety of critical and methodological approaches, which reflect the diversity of the mentoring experiences under consideration, the collection highlights in particular the importance of mentoring in expanding print culture. Topics include John Wilmot the Earl of Rochester's relationships to a range of role models, John Dryden's mentoring of women writers, Alexander Pope's problematic attempts at mentoring, the vexed nature of Jonathan Swift's cross-gender and cross-class mentoring relationships, Samuel Richardson's largely unsuccessful efforts to influence Urania Hill Johnson, and an examination of Elizabeth Carter and Samuel Johnson's as co-mentors of one another's work. Taken together, the essays further the case for mentoring as a globally operative critical concept, not only in the eighteenth century, but in other literary periods as well.

Introduction Authority and Influence in Eighteenth-Century British Literary Mentoring; Chapter 1 "Reverend Shapes": Lord Rochester's Many Mentors 1 This chapter is dedicated to my many mentors: Miss Claire Lynch, Dr. Cecil Abernethy, Dr. Monroe Spears, Dr. Bernard Schilling, Dr. Lewis Beck, Dr. Willson Coates, and Dr. H.T. Swedenberg., James William Johnson; Chapter 2 "Manly Strength with Modern Softness": Dryden and the Mentoring of Women Writers 1 This essay is written with gratitude to Steven N. Zwicker, who taught me to read Dryden and who, like the poet, has given generously and unceasingly to students, female and male, who aspire to think and write well., Anne Cotterill; Chapter 3 Alexander Pope: Perceived Patron, Misunderstood Mentor 1 I would like to thank Jocelyn Harris and Paul Tankard for their extensive and careful suggestions in revising this chapter. And though no footnote could acknowledge all the sound advice and encouragement Jocelyn has offered over the 17 years I have been her colleague, I hope the chapter in some small way expresses how much I have valued her role as mentor., Shef Rogers; Chapter 4 "I will have you spell right, let the world go how it will": Swift the (Tor)mentor, Brean Hammond, Nicholas Seager1 Brean Hammond supervised Nicholas Seager's University of Nottingham doctoral dissertation. The present chapter, though not part of that dissertation, is an example of, and a result of, their mentoring relationship.; Chapter 5 Candide and Tom Jones: Voltaire, Perched on Fielding's Shoulders 1 This article is dedicated to mentor and friend, Professor René LeBlanc. Professor LeBlanc's encyclopedic knowledge of French literature coupled with his boundless enthusiasm inspired generations of undergraduates at Université Ste-Anne, Nova Scotia's only French language university., E.M. Langille; Chapter 6 Filling Blanks in the Richardson Circle: The Unsuccessful Mentorship of Urania Johnson 1 I would like to thank my own mentor, James Grantham Turner, who read my first thoughts on Richardson in 2001 and, years later, was still willing to discuss the idea for this essay with me over tables of vegetables at the Berkeley Farmers' Market., Nicholas D. Nace; Chapter 7 Raising a Risible Nation: Merry Mentoring and the Art (and Sometimes Science) of Joking Greatness 1 My chapter on "merry mentoring" is dedicated to the late Walter Jackson Bate, whose lifelong example of erudite irreverence, easygoing instructiveness, and effervescent intelligence cheered me during my student days and whose gently satiric implementation of the life of the mind attracted thousands of new citizens to the "commonwealth of wit.", Kevin L. Cope; Chapter 8 The Education of Henry Sampson Woodfall, Newspaperman 1 This chapter is dedicated to William Goodfellow, who cultivated bonsai trees, drove a 1960 turtleback Porsche, wore sport coats with velvet collars, and, rumor had it, fought behind enemy lines in Burma with Merrill's Marauders. During the 1960s he taught a class at Hawthorne High School called simply "Seminar" that is still the best educational experience of my life. While my schoolmates the Wilson brothers (a.k.a. the Beach Boys) were busy recording songs about Hawthorne, Mr. Goodfellow was busy trying to get us out of it. He introduced us to semantics, Thurber, Hogarth, Will Durant, and haiku. He inspired us to apply to the Ivy League. I ended up at Dartmouth. I loved Hawthorne, the boulevards, and the beach; but Mr. Goodfellow introduced me to the wider world and then made me go there., Lance Bertelsen; Chapter 9 The Text of the Missed Encounter: Mentorship as Absence in Smart, Johnson, Bate, and Trilling 1 The author would like to acknowledge his professor and dissertation director at UC Berkeley from 1981-8, the former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, as a central influence for this chapter., Thomas Simmons; Chapter 10 Who's Mentoring Whom? Mentorship, Alliance, and Rivalry in the Carter-Johnson Relationship 1 This essay is dedicated to my best teachers: E. Parker Bogue, John H. Zammito, Beth Hedrick, Kate Frost, James Garrison, Stuart Sherman, Bruce Redford, and Gwin Kolb., Anthony W. Lee; Chapter 11 The Duties of a Scholar: Samuel Johnson in Piozzi's Anecdotes 1 This chapter is dedicated, with gratitude and affection, to the memory of John H. Middendorf, who was the mentor and advisor to several generations of eighteenth-centuriests at Columbia University between 1945 and his retirement in 1990. I count myself extremely fortunate to have been among their number. An exemplary Johnsonian, a beloved teacher, a gracious colleague, and a cherished friend, John Middendorf set an example for me and my peers (of any era) that was at once eminently worthy of imitation and ultimately inimitable., Elizabeth Hedrick; Chapter 12, whose insightful comments and questions have informed the development of this piece from its early stages, and for whose constant support, encouragement, and mentorship I am deeply grateful., Margaret Kathryn Sloan;