The Sentimental Novel in the Eighteenth Century

Provides twenty-first century readers with a new, comprehensive and suggestive account of the sentimental novel in the eighteenth century.

Albert J. Rivero (Edited by)

9781108418928, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 March 2019

258 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'This collection is a thoughtful and comprehensive extension of the scholarship, as it not only brings together various strands of criticism but also builds on them in imaginative ways. Rivero asserts that 'far from being obsolete or only of antiquary interest, the sentimental novel remains a vibrant and exciting area of study.' The strength of this enterprising collection proves Rivero's claim, and scholars will no doubt turn to this volume to enrich future studies of the sentimental novel.' Philip Trotter, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats

As a literary genre, the sentimental novel reached the height of its vogue in the 1770s and 1780s and was still popular as the eighteenth century drew to a close. This volume presents a comprehensive exploration of the sentimental novel in the eighteenth century, beginning with its origins in the so-called amatory fiction of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Chapters from leading scholars combine the various aspects and contexts of the genre, from politics, slavery, women writers, and the Gothic to the sentimental novel in America, France and Germany, with historically informed close readings of novels by writers including Samuel Richardson (1689–1761), Laurence Sterne (1713–68) and Jane Austen (1775–1817). This volume demonstrates that the sentimental novel continues to engage readers and critics and that, far from being obsolete or only of antiquary interest, it remains a vibrant and exciting area of study.

Introduction Albert J. Rivero
1. The sentimental novel and politics Gary Kelly
2. Sensible readers: experiments in feeling in early prose fiction by women Ros Ballaster
3. Reading for the sentiment: Richardson's novels Bonnie Latimer
4. The virtuous in distress: David Simple, Amelia, Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph Barbara M. Benedict
5. Sentiment from abroad: French novels after 1748 Gillian Dow
6. Sterne's sentimental empiricism Jonathan Lamb
7. Virtue not rewarded: The Man of Feeling and The Sorrows of Young Werther Maureen Harkin
8. Slavery and the novel of sentiment Brycchan Carey
9. Sentiment and the Gothic: failures of emotion in the novels of Mrs Radcliffe and the Minerva Press Hannah Doherty Hudson
10. The sentimental novel in America: The History of Emily Montague, Charlotte Temple, The Power of Sympathy, The Coquette Joseph F. Bartolomeo
11. Novel anachronisms: Sophia Lee's The Life of a Lover and Frances Burney's The Wanderer Melissa Sodeman
12. Jane Austen and the sentimental novel Albert J. Rivero
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]