The Secret History in Literature, 1660–1820

This collection explores for the first time the importance of secret history in the literature of the long eighteenth century.

Rebecca Bullard (Edited by), Rachel Carnell (Edited by)

9781316604908, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 July 2019

294 pages, 4 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15 x 1.6 cm, 1.6 kg

'While it might be an exaggeration to say that there are two distinct histories of the secret history, there seem to be at least two styles of writing about it. The first is literary, and this tradition is best exemplified by Rebecca Bullard and Rachel Carnell's remarkably wide-ranging and insightful collection of essays, The Secret History in Literature, 1660–1820.' Brian Cowan, Huntington Library Quarterly

Secret history, with its claim to expose secrets of state and the sexual intrigues of monarchs and ministers, alarmed and thrilled readers across Europe and America from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Scholars have recognised for some time the important position that the genre occupies within the literary and political culture of the Enlightenment. Of interest to students of British, French and American literature, as well as political and intellectual history, this new volume of essays demonstrates for the first time the extent of secret history's interaction with different literary traditions, including epic poetry, Restoration drama, periodicals, and slave narratives. It reveals secret history's impact on authors, readers, and the book trade in England, France, and America throughout the long eighteenth century. In doing so, it offers a case study for approaching questions of genre at moments when political and cultural shifts put strain on traditional generic categories.

Introduction: reconsidering secret history Rebecca Bullard
Part I. Seventeenth-Century England: 1. Paradise Lost as a secret history Michael McKeon
2. Secret history and seventeenth-century historiography Martine W. Brownley
3. Secret history and restoration drama Erin Keating
4. Secret history and allegory David A. Brewer
5. Secret history and amatory fiction Claudine van Hensbergen
6. Secret history and spy narratives Slaney Chadwick Ross
Part II. Eighteenth-Century Britain: 7. Secret history, parody, and satire Melinda Alliker Rabb
8. Secret history and it-narrative Rivka Swenson
9. Secret history, oriental tale, and fairy tale Ros Ballaster
10. Secret history and the periodical Nicola Parsons
11. Secret history and censorship Eve Tavor Bannet
12. Secret history and anecdote April London
13. Secret history in the Romantic period Miranda Burgess
Part III. France and America: 14. Secret history in pre-revolutionary France Allison Stedman
15. Secret history in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France Antoinette Sol
16. Secret history in British North America and the early Republic Kevin Joel Berland
17. Secret history in the early nineteenth-century Americas Gretchen J. Woertendyke
Epilogue: secret history at the start of the twenty-first century Rachel Carnell.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]