Literature and Crime in Augustan England

by Ian A. Bell

Overview

Eighteenth-century England saw an explosion of writings about deviance. In literature, in the law, and in the press, writers returned again and again to the question of crime and criminals.

While the extension of the legal system formalised the power of the state to categorise and punish ‘deviance’, writers repeatedly confronted the problematic nature of legal authority and the unstable idea of ‘the criminal’. Some of this commentary was supportive, some was subversive and resistant, uncovering the complexity of issues the law sought to ignore.

Originally published in 1991, Ian Bell’s masterly investigation of the diverse representations of crime and legality in the Augustan period ranges widely across the contemporary press, involving court reports, philosophical writings, periodicals, biographies, pornography and polemics. Re-assessing the canonical texts of eighteenth-century ‘Literature’, Bell situates the work of Defoe, Hogarth, Gay, Swift, Pope, Richardson and Fielding in its social and political context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000031096
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/08/2020
Series:	Routledge Library Editions: 18th Century Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	260
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Ian A. Bell

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.  Introduction: Buttock and Twang  1. Literature/Crime/Society  2. Representing the Criminal  3. The Harlot’s Progress  4. Satire’s Rough Music  5. Fielding and the Discipline of Fiction  6. Postscript: Buttock and File.  Notes.  Index.