This collection foregrounds progress as "improvement" as a constitutive theme of Scottish writing during the long eighteenth century. It explores improvement as the animating principle behind Scotland’s post-1707 project of modernization, a narrative both shaped and reflected in the literary sphere.

Foreword Nicholas Phillipson Introduction: Mapping Cultures of Improvement in Scottish Romanticism Alex Benchimol and Gerard Lee McKeever Part I: Print, Progress and Politeness 1. Andrew Millar’s 'Good Vouchers': The Malt Tax Crisis and Trade in Controversy Adam Budd 2. Let Scotland Flourish by the Printing of the Word: Commerce, Civic Enlightenment and National Improvement in the Glasgow Advertiser, 1783-1800 Alex Benchimol 3. 'Simplicity, Rightly Understood': Improvement in the Collaboration of Robert Burns and George Thomson Gerard Lee McKeever Part II: Literature, Land and Commerce 4. Thomas Pennant, National Description and the Project of Improvement Nigel Leask 5. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Improvement: David Dale, Robert Owen and New Lanark Cotton Michael Morris 6. Pastoral Optimism at Improvement’s Frontier: James Hogg’s Highland Journeys Alex Deans 7. 'Earth and Stone': Improvement, Entailment and Geographical Futures in the Novel of the 1820s Penny Fielding Part III: Death, Legacy and Medicine 8. Reading John Anderson’s Will: Improving Human Nature, Science and Scotland in a Commercial Society Tom Furniss 9. Medicine and Improvement in the Scots Magazine; and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany (1804-17) Megan Coyer 10. A Death in the Cottage: Spiritual and Economic Improvement in Romantic-Era Scottish Death Narratives Sarah Sharp Postscript: Varieties of Cultural Improvement in the Long Eighteenth Century Gerard Carruthers