Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel - Softcover

Armstrong, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195061608 ISBN 13: 9780195061604

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 1990

Synopsis

In this strikingly original treatment of the rise of the novel, Nancy Armstrong argues that the novels and non- fiction written by and for women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England paved the way for the rise of the modern English middle class. Most critical studies of the novel mistakenly locate political power exclusively in the official institutions of state, ignoring the political domain over which women hold authority, which includes courtship practices, family relations, and the use of leisure time. To remedy this, Armstrong provides a dual analysis, tracing both the rise of the novel and the evolution of female authority as part of one phenomenon.

About this title

Review

`The provocative thesis Armstrong....develops challenges traditional descriptions of the rise of the novel...The result is a genuine contribution to the growing shelf of feminist criticism.'Choice`Armstrong offers a complicated scholarly feminist view of literary history just when you thought this burgeoning academic industry was running out of steam.'Library Journal

About the Author

Nancy Armstrong is at University of Minnesota.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195061608
• ISBN 13: 9780195061604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312