Reinventing Liberty: Nation, Commerce and the Historical Novel from Walpole to Scott

Fiona Price

Open Access Published by Edinburgh University Press 2016

Reinventing Liberty

Nation, Commerce and the Historical Novel from Walpole to Scott

Fiona Price

In the series Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474402972

Overview
Contents

About this book

Redefines the British historical novel as a key site in the construction of British national identity

The British historical novel has often been defined in the terms set by Walter Scott’s fiction, as a reflection on a clear break between past and present. Returning to the range of historical fiction written before Scott, Reinventing Liberty challenges this view by returning us to the rich range of historical novels written in the late eighteenth-century. It explores how these works participated in a contentious debate concerning political change and British national identity. Ranging across well-known writers, like William Godwin, Horace Walpole and Frances Burney, to lesser-known figures, such as Cornelia Ellis Knight and Jane Porter, Reinventing Liberty reveals how history becomes a site to rethink Britain as ‘land of liberty’ and it positions Scott in relation to this tradition.

Key Features

Recovers the richness of the historical novel and history writing before Walter Scott, including the contribution of women writers to this debate
Explores how historical fiction probes anxieties at the rise of commerce, the question of empire, and radical political change
Rewrites our understanding of Scott and his relation to the earlier British historical novel

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	1
1. Ancient Liberties Open Access Download PDF	23
2. The Labours of History Open Access Download PDF	59
3. Uneasy Alliances: Liberty and the Nation Open Access Download PDF	99
4. Conserving Histories: Chivalry, Science and Liberty Open Access Download PDF	135
5. The End of History? Scott, His Precursors and the Violent Past Open Access Download PDF	170
Conclusion Open Access Download PDF	207
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	217
Index Open Access Download PDF	235

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Other: 1 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: April 13, 2016
ISBN: 9781474402972