Reading daughters' fictions, 1709-1834
Subtitle: novels and society from Manley to Edgeworth
By: Caroline Gonda.
Series: Cambridge studies in Romanticism ;; 19
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
Subjects: Manley, Mrs. 1663-1724 -- Fictional works; Edgeworth, Maria, 1767-1849 -- Criticism and interpretation; Domestic fiction, English -- History and criticism; Fathers and daughters in literature; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; English fiction -- Women authors -- History and criticism; English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism; English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Romanticism -- Great Britain; Patriarchy in literature; Family in literature
Description: It has been argued that the eighteenth century witnessed a decline in paternal authority, and the emergence of more intimate, affectionate relationships between parent and child. In Reading Daughters' Fictions, Caroline Gonda draws on a wide range of novels and non-literary materials from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in order to examine changing representations of the father-daughter bond.

She shows that heroine-centred novels, aimed at a predominantly female readership, had an important part to play in female socialization and the construction of heterosexuality, in which the father-daughter relationship had a central role. Contemporary diatribes against novels claimed that reading fiction produced rebellious daughters, fallen women, and nervous female wrecks.

Gonda's study of novels of family life and courtship suggests that, far from corrupting the female reader, such fictions helped to maintain rather than undermine familial and social order.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-282) and index.