Space and the Eighteenth-Century English Novel

This study, first published in 1990, relates the idea of spatial design in the major novels of Defoe, Fielding and Richardson to eighteenth-century architecture.

Simon Varey (Author)

9780521374835, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 July 1990

234 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.52 kg

"Knowledgeable, specific, and well-designed....the first book to talk not only about the influence of architecture on literature, but to enact that interplay, to make readers enter the edifice of writing." Kevin L. Cope, Philological Quarterly

In this challenging and illustrated study, first published in 1990, Simon Varey relates the idea of space in the major novels of Defoe, Fielding and Richardson to its use in the theory and practice of eighteenth-century architecture. Concepts of divine design, expressed in the work of philosophers and theologians, introduced an ideological element to the notion of space which gave it a heightened significance in contemporary thought. Professor Varey's central argument is that space becomes a political instrument used to establish conformity, assert power and give form to the aspirations of social classes. He draws on a wide range of architectural books, both English and European, and on the example of Bath (focusing in particular on its chief architect in the eighteenth century, John Wood). The discussion of novels such as Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones and Clarissa examines narrative as a form of spatial design, the use of architectural imagery to describe people, and the political control of social space.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on translations
Introduction
Part I: 1. Space, architecture and politics
2. Space, the architect and the design argument
Part II: 3. The rise of Bath
4. An architect's imagination: John Wood's Bath
Part III: 5. Defoe and the politics of space
6. Fielding and the convenience of design
7. Richardson and the violation of space
8. The politics of space
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]