Traces the genesis and development of the concept of the Renaissance in the literary, religious, political, and critical writing of the late-18th and 19th centuries. Among the authors discussed in this book are Voltaire, Ruskin, Browning, George Eliot, Swinburne, Arnold and Pater.

The foundations of Renaissance historiography in the 18th century - Voltaire, Gibbon; the genesis of the Renaissance - Seroux d'Agincourt; the Renaissance among the historians - Roscoe and Sismondi; the Renaissance among the French Romantics; the Renaissance as revived paganism - A.W. Pugin; the Renaissance and Protestant confusion - England in the 1840s; the Renaissance as fall from grace - John Ruskin; the Renaissance as rediscovery - Michelet and Quinet; Renaissance men and women - Browning; the Renaissance and regeneration - George Eliot; the Renaissance revised - England in the 1860s; the Renaissance as enactment - Walter Pater.

J.B. Bullen's book contains a great deal of interesting information about responses to the Italian Renaissance and many perceptive insights into the nature of those responses...It is for the English chapters that this book will mainly be read; and they can be studied with pleasure and profit by anyone fascinated by a particularly appealing period of English Literature and also by everyone interested in the mysterious (but frequently recurring) processes by which some new and foreign historical concept gradually becomes absorbed into the fiction, poetry, aesthetics, philosophy, and historical writing of a quite different civilization. `The great achievement of this study is the recovery of... lost conversations... Bullen is exceptionally qualified to author a comprehensive, comparative, and synthetic work such as The Myth of the Renaissance in Nineteenth-Century Writing... Bullen provides an excellent survey for graduate students, an essential study for historians of ideas, and an attractive and lucid narrative of a contentious period in European history for readers of any background.' Christine Bolus-Reichert, The European Legacy Vol.5 No.1 'a substantial achievement, lucidly written and often persuasively argued ... The dust-jacket proudly suggests that it "will be essential reading for all scholars and students of the nineteenth century". I suspect that this is too modest.' Times Literary Supplement `This self-effacing and just book is that rare thing, an academic study which rings as true as a bell.' The Modern Language Review `This is a well-argued and erudite analysis of the nineteenth -century development of the 'myth' of the 'Renaissance'. He makes a compelling argument for veiwing the changing historical and literary definition of the Renaissance as a product of literary strategies. As his ananlysis clearly demonstrates, the modern day myth of the Renaissance is a product of language and of historicl discourse, with its roots in fictive rhetorical strategies and literary devices.' Notes and Queries `J.B. Bullen's book contains a great deal of interesting information about responses to the Italian Renaissance, and many perceptive insights into the nature of those responses ... it is for the English chapters that this book will mainly be read; and they can be studied with pleasure and profit by anyone fascinated by a particularly appealing period of English literature and also by everyone interested in the mysterious (but frequently recurring) processes by which some new and foreign historical concept gradually becomes absorbed into the fiction, poetry, aesthetics, philosophy, and historical writing of a quite different civilization.' Francis Haskelol, Trinity College, Oxford, Review of Engliish Studies, Vol. XLVII, No. 188, Nov '96