Philip James Bailey, Festus

Presents for the first time Philip James Bailey's epic masterpiece in a readable, modern volume. Philip James Bailey's Festus was an artistic sensation in the Victorian period, a best-seller across the Anglophone world and broadly influential on other writers. This edition marks the first time it has been published in over 100 years, featuring the poem's first lineation and a contextualisation of its scientific and theological imagery. Scholars and students will benefit from a general introduction to Bailey's life and work, with a thematic guide to the poem that made him famous and appendices containing illustrations from period lithography. Mischa Willett is Assistant Professor in English at Seattle Pacific University.