Families of the Heart : Surrogate Relations in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel

In this innovative analysis of canonical British novels, Campbell identifies a new literary device—the surrogate family—as a signal of cultural anxieties about young women’s changing relationship to matrimony across the long eighteenth century. By assembling __chosen__ families rather than families of origin, Campbell convincingly argues, female protagonists in these works compensate for weak family ties, explore the world and themselves, prepare for idealized marriages, or sidestep marriage altogether. Tracing the evolution of this rich convention from the female characters in Defoe’s and Richardson’s fiction who are allowed some autonomy in choosing spouses, to the more explicitly feminist work of Haywood and Burney, in which connections between protagonists and their surrogate sisters and mothers can substitute for marriage itself, this book makes an ambitious intervention by upending a traditional trope—the model of the hierarchal family—ultimately offering a new lens through which to regard these familiar works. CONTENTS 7 INTRODUCTION 11 1 JUST BUSINESS Surrogate Families as Entrepreneurial Ventures in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Roxana 26 2 BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR THE FAMILY OF THE HEART Prototypes of Surrogate Families in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Pamela in Her Exalted Condition 49 3 PERFECTING THE FAMILY OF THE HEART Relationship Remembered in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison 60 4 AN AFFINITY FOR LEARNING Eliza Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless and The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy 86 5 ADOPTING TO CHANGE Choosing Family in Frances Burney’s Evelina and Cecilia 112 CONCLUSION 128 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 139 NOTES 141 BIBLIOGRAPHY 159 INDEX 169 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 176