The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Fiction explores how the figure of the orphan was shaped by changing social and historical circumstances. Analysing sixteen major novels from Defoe to Austen, this original study explains the undiminished popularity...
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The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Fiction explores how the figure of the orphan was shaped by changing social and historical circumstances. Analysing sixteen major novels from Defoe to Austen, this original study explains the undiminished popularity of literary orphans and reveals their key role in the construction of gendered subjectivity. "The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Fiction brings together a psychoanalytical approach to the orphan as a gendered subject with the political evolution of class relations during the eighteenth century and a historical view of the development of the novel as a genre. The result is a masterful argument that balances original insights into individual texts with a far-reaching thesis about the literary-historical and psychosocial significance of the orphan figure." - Professor Angela Esterhammer, University of Toronto, USA.
