This is the first book to bring perspectives from the field of Peace Studies to bear on the writing of the Romantic period. Particularly significant is that field’s attention not only to anti-war protest but more purposefully to considerations of how peace can actively be fostered, established, and sustained. Resisting discourses of military propaganda, writers such as Helen Maria Williams, William Wordsworth, William Cobbett, and Jane Austen embark on the challenging and urgent rhetorical work of imagining, and inspiring others to imagine, the possibility of peace. The writers considered in this book formulate a peace imaginary in various registers. Sometimes this means identifying and eschewing traditional militaristic tropes in order to craft alternative figurations of a patriotism that is compatible with peace. Other times it means turning away from xenophobic discourse to write about relations with other nations in terms other than those of conflict.