Sensibility and economics in the novel, 1740-1800 : the price of a tear

Sensibility and Economics in the Novel argues that the sentimental novel, usually seen as a 'feminine' genre concentrating exclusively on emotional response, is in fact actively involved in contemporary economic and political debates. Spanning the period encompassing the rise, heyday and decline of sentimentalism, the book considers how the trajectory of the movement affected the sentimental novel's use of discourses of economics, sensibility and femininity, and assesses the impact of the pressures of the post-Revolutionary 1790s on these areas. Sensibility and Economics in the Novel, 1740-1800 argues that the sentimental novel, usually seen as a `feminine' genre concentrating exclusively on emotional response, is in fact actively involved in contemporary economic and political debates. Introducing works of economic theory alongside sentimental fiction, Gillian Skinner shows how discourses of sentimentalism are closely related to the developing discourses of economics in the period. Both discourses unite in the representation of the working woman in sentimental fiction, a figure hitherto ignored but vital to understanding the emergence of characters (largely, although not exclusively, female) designed to effect an unprecedented union of sensibility, femininity and economic ability. Spanning the period encompassing the rise, heyday and decline of sentimentalism, the book considers how the trajectory of the movement affected the sentimental novel's treatment of economic issues and their relations to discourses of sensibility and femininity, and assesses the impact of the pressures of the post-Revolutionary 1790s on these areas Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-14 Economic Sense and Sensibility in David Simple, Tom Jones and The Countess of Dellwyn....Pages 15-36 Sexual Innocence and Economic Experience: the Problems of Amelia and Ophelia....Pages 37-58 ‘Godlike benefactors’: Patriarchal Patterns in Lady Julia Mandeville, The Vicar of Wakefield and Humphry Clinker....Pages 59-90 ‘Above œconomy’: The History of Lady Barton, The Man of Feeling and A Sentimental Journey....Pages 91-116 ‘The first soft system’: Commerce, Sensibility and Femininity in Barham Downs and Anna: or Memoirs of a Welch Heiress....Pages 117-153 ‘The mild lustre of modest independence’: Economies of Obligation in Novels of the 1790s....Pages 154-186 Conclusion....Pages 187-190 Back Matter....Pages 191-232