The secret life of things : animals, objects, and it-narratives in eighteenth-century England / edited by Mark Blackwell.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Blackwell, Mark, 1966-

Series:

Bucknell studies in eighteenth-century literature and culture.

The Bucknell studies in eighteenth-century literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--18th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Material culture in literature.

Material culture--England--History--18th century.

Material culture.

Consumption (Economics) in literature.

Property in literature.

Animals in literature.

Human-animal relationships in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (365 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg, Pa. : Bucknell University Press, 2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.

Contents:

pt. 1. The stories things tell

pt. 2. Approaching it-narratives

pt 3. It-narratives in transition.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8387-5940-8

OCLC:

608504502