Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture, 1748-1818

by Ruth Perry

Overview

Ruth Perry's major study describes the transformation of the English family, as represented in fiction, in the context of major social changes taking place in the eighteenth century. These include the development of a market economy and waged labor, enclosure and the redistribution of land, urbanization, the 'rise' of the middle class, and the development of print culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521836944
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/05/2004
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.33(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ruth Perry is Professor of Literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The great disinheritance; 2. Fathers and daughters; 3. Sister-right and the bonds of consanguinity; 4. Brotherly love in life literature; 5. Privatized marriage and property relations; 6. Sexualized marriage and property in the person; 7. Farming fiction: Arthur Young and the problem of representation; 8. The importance of aunts; 9. Family feeling.

Editorial Reviews

"[An] engrossing book[...]Novel Relations is a book full of resonant suggestions and unexpected examples."
-Times Literary Supplement

"Ruth Perry's[...]Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinship in English Literature and Culture, 1748-1818.[...]adds considerably to our understanding of psychological and social conditions of Austen's world."
-NYRB

"At every point [Ruth Perry] factors in such major forces as changes in economic systems, print culture, population growth, and urbanization, and most valuably brings together the best and most pertinent research in social history, cultural anthropology, psychology, and law."
-Paula R. Backscheider, Auburn University, The Scriblerian

"Novel Relations is a book to be admired for its careful and bold approach to the critical problems of family, love, and modernity, and no doubt it will immediately be a required point of engagement for any scholars work on these issues."
-Corrinne Harol, University of Alberta, Nineteenth-Century Literature

From the Publisher