| Mistress of the House: Women of Property in the Victorian Novel Contributor(s): Dolin, Tim (Author) |
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ISBN: 1138267449 ISBN-13: 9781138267442 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $66.49 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Comparative Literature |
| Series: Nineteenth Century |
| Physical Information: 168 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This exploration of gender and property ownership in eight important novels argues that property is a decisive undercurrent in narrative structures and modes, as well as an important gender signature in society and culture. Tim Dolin suggests that the formal development of nineteenth-century domestic fiction can only be understood in the context of changes in the theory and laws of property: indeed femininity and its representation cannot be considered separately from property relations and their reform. He presents original readings of novels in which a woman owns, acquires or loses property, focusing on exchanges between patriarchal cultural authority, the 'woman question' and narrative form, and on the place of domestic fiction in a culture in which property relations and gender relations are subject to radical review. Each chapter revolves around a representative text, but refers substantially to other material, both other novels and contemporary social, legal, political and feminist commentary. |