The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England

The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England analyzes the long overlooked role of gift exchange in literary texts and cultural documents and provides innovative readings of how gift transactions shaped the institutions and practices that gave this era its distinctive identity. This book analyzes the long overlooked role of gift exchange in literary texts and cultural documents and provides innovative readings of how gift transactions shaped the institutions and practices that gave this era its distinctive identity Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-12 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 Rights and Reciprocity in the Political and Philosophical Discourse of Eighteenth-Century England....Pages 15-35 Charity Education and the Spectacle of “Christian Entertainment”....Pages 37-54 Debt without Redemption in a World of “Impossible Exchange”: Samuel Richardson and Philanthropy....Pages 55-75 Front Matter....Pages 77-77 ’Tis Better to Give: The Conduct Manual as Gift....Pages 79-106 The Gift of an Education: Sarah Trimmer’s Oeconomy of Charity and the Sunday School Movement....Pages 107-122 Front Matter....Pages 123-123 Obligation, Coercion, and Economy: The Deed of Trust in Congreve’s The Way of the World ....Pages 125-141 The Erotics of the Gift: Gender and Exchange in the Eighteenth-Century Novel....Pages 143-158 Fictions of the Gift in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall ....Pages 159-175 The Nation, the Gift, and the Market in The Wanderer ....Pages 177-194 Front Matter....Pages 195-195 Josiah Wedgwood’s Goodwill Marketing....Pages 197-213 Anson at Canton, 1743: Obligation, Exchange, and Ritual in Edward Page’s “Secret History”....Pages 215-233 Back Matter....Pages 235-263 "An exceptionally rich collection, unusually well focused and well organized. Its title belies the breadth of the issues under examination, for the gift ultimately subsumes issues as diverse as poverty, charity, benevolence, sensibility, conduct, poor relief, and the emergence of the welfare state. Because such issues are usually owned by nineteenth-century studies (from the early labor history of the Hammonds up to Gertrude Himmelfarb), it is refreshing to see them pushed back into the eighteenth century. The essays draw on the rich tradition of theorists of the gift, from Mauss, Irigaray, Bourdieu, Cixous, Hyde, Derrida, and Bataille, but in conjunction with an attention to historical detail. What is finally at stake here is our central modernization narrative, the one that presumes an inevitable conflict between subordination and commercialization, when the interlocking chains of deference and obligation (Harold Perkin) are eroded by the morality of improvement (Raymond Williams). This collection will be of interest to anyone studying eighteenth-century culture."--James Thompson, Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Offering a variety of disciplinary perspectives, The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England analyzes the long-overlooked role of gift exchange in literary texts, cultural documents, and economic relations in the period from 1660-1800. Contributors argue that the gift was instrumental to the workings of eighteenth-century society : it supported the phenomenal rise of charities, explained the increasingly complicated trade relations, enforced conventions of obligation and social hierarchies, and both strengthened and challenged the emergence of a market economy. Building upon the works of recent theorists, these essays provide innovative readings of how gift transactions shaped the institutions and practices that gave this era its distinctive identity