The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature

Estate, Blood, and Body
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6424-6
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 622 g

Reihe: Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present

Cheryl Nixon's book is the first to connect the eighteenth-century fictional orphan and factual orphan, emphasizing the legal concepts of estate, blood, and body. Examining novels by authors such as Eliza Haywood, Tobias Smollett, and Elizabeth Inchbald, and referencing never-before analyzed case records, Nixon reconstructs the narratives of real orphans in the British parliamentary, equity, and common law courts and compares them to the narratives of fictional orphans. The orphan's uncertain economic, familial, and bodily status creates opportunities to "plot" his or her future according to new ideologies of the social individual. Nixon demonstrates that the orphan encourages both fact and fiction to re-imagine structures of estate (property and inheritance), blood (familial origins and marriage), and body (gender and class mobility). Whereas studies of the orphan typically emphasize the poor urban foundling, Nixon focuses on the orphaned heir or heiress and his or her need to be situated in a domestic space. Arguing that the eighteenth century constructs the "valued" orphan, Nixon shows how the wealthy orphan became associated with new understandings of the individual. New archival research encompassing print and manuscript records from Parliament, Chancery, Exchequer, and King's Bench demonstrate the law's interest in the propertied orphan. The novel uses this figure to question the formulaic structures of narrative sub-genres such as the picaresque and romance and ultimately encourage the hybridization of such plots. As Nixon traces the orphan's contribution to the developing novel and developing ideology of the individual, she shows how the orphan creates factual and fictional understandings of class, family, and gender.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nixon, Cheryl L.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents: Introduction: the valued orphan: law and literature; Part 1 Estate: The poor orphan: factual/fictional institutions and statutory law; The propertied orphan: public/private papers and Parliamentary Acts. Part 2 Blood: The male orphan plot: fictionalizing the family in Annesley v. Anglesey; The female orphan plot: rewriting and rereading the family in Palmer v. Palmer. Part 3 Body: The confined orphan: ravishing guardians and the heiress' marriage plot; The mobile orphan: charitable bodies and the gentleman's picaresque; Conclusion: the valued individual: estate, blood, and body; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Cheryl Nixon is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her publications on eighteenth-century literature, law, and the family include Novel Definitions: An Anthology of Commentary on the Novel, 1688-1815.