Now, in Withnail and the Romantic Imagination, Maisie Robson explores the eternal
themes that give this curious film its relevance and power. A hard-core Withnail fan,
Robson has a day job lecturing on English Literature at a British university. As the
biographer of Arthur Mee and S P B Mais, she is well-placed to pin down the cultural
echoes- romantic, pastoral, elegy and gothic - that give this enduring film its context
and meaning.

Withnail and the Romantic Imagination analyses the poetry of Bruce Robinson's
laconic screenplay, explaining how generations of Withnail devotees - who
wouldn't give you tuppence for Wordsworth - manage effortlessly to commit its
riffs to memory.

The central quartet of characters - Withnail, Marwood, Monty and Danny - are
related to their place in the plot, their own cultural hinterland, and the nnnnnnnnnnnnn
unforgettable performances of Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths
and Ralph Brown.  The contribution of more minor characters is celebrated and
there is a meditation on the late Vivian MacKerrell.  MacKerrell is the shadowy
Branwell Bronte figure in the Withnail myth: unsuccessful himself, he was the
cause of talent in others.

Anyone interested in cult films and English literature will find this a book to cherish. 
With an index, bibliography and black and white illustrations, it will delight and
inform students of Film, Literature and Critical & Cultural Theory, as well as all
those Withnail fans who, like Robson, have fallen under the spell. Will we never be
set free?