William Hazlitt had concluded in 1815 that a Quaker poet would be 'a literary phenomenon' - how could a marginal sect renowned for their plain dress, sober ways and proscription of pleasures produce imaginative literature? To conceive such a writer would be a paradox.
Yet the career of Bernard Barton, a prolific poet of the 1820s and 1830s, presented the Romantic era with just such a phenomenon.
Instantly recognisable to his contemporaries as the Quaker poet, Barton drew on the style.
Anthem Press Selected poems of bernard barton, the 'quaker poet', hardcover/christopher stokes
