The Anti-Jacobin Novel
British Conservatism and the French Revolution

Offers insights into the society which produced and consumed anti-Jacobin novels.

M. O. Grenby (Author)

9780521021265, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 October 2005

292 pages
22.8 x 15 x 1.7 cm, 0.447 kg

'Filling in a long-standing blank in our perception of the Romantic-era novel, The Anti-Jacobin Novel offers a valuable contribution to British literary history, as well as powerful arguments for revisiting the way in which literary criticism has tended to represent British politics and society of the 1790s in the last few decades. For these, and other reasons, Grenby has done the critical community a great service. … ground-breaking …'. Romanticism

The French Revolution sparked an ideological debate which also brought Britain to the brink of revolution in the 1790s. Just as radicals wrote 'Jacobin' fiction, so the fear of rebellion prompted conservatives to respond with novels of their own; indeed, these soon outnumbered the Jacobin novels. This was the first survey of the full range of conservative novels produced in Britain during the 1790s and early 1800s. M. O. Grenby examines the strategies used by conservatives in their fiction, thus shedding new light on how the anti-Jacobin campaign was understood and organised in Britain. Chapters cover the representation of revolution and rebellion, the attack on the 'new philosophy' of radicals such as Godwin and Wollstonecraft, and the way in which hierarchy is defended in these novels. Grenby's book offers an insight into the society which produced and consumed anti-Jacobin novels, and presents a case for reexamining these neglected texts.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Novels reproved and reprieved
2. Representing revolution
3. The new philosophy
4. The Vaurien and the hierarchy of Jacobinism
5. Levellers, Nabobs and the manners of the great: the novel's defense of hierarchy
6. The creation of orthodoxy: constructing the anti-Jacobin novel
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]