SOURCE: Cross, Ashley J. “From Lyrical Ballads to Lyrical Tales: Mary Robinson's Reputation and the Problem of Literary Debt.” Studies in Romanticism 40, no. 4 (winter 2001): 571-605.

In the following essay, Cross presents Lyrical Tales as an effort by Robinson to assert “her literary debt and her poetic autonomy” by linking it with Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and exposing the issues of literary reputation and female authorship.

All reputation is hazardous … hard to win, harder to keep.

—William Hazlitt, Table Talk

Reputation is valuable; and whatever is of value ought to enter into our estimates. A just and reasonable man will be anxious so to conduct himself that he may not be misunderstood. He will be patient in explaining, where his motives have been misapprehended and misconstrued. It is a spirit of false bravado that will not descend to vindicate itself from misrepresentation.

—William Godwin, Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature...