The art of alibi: English law courts and the novel
By: Jonathan H. Grossman.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Baltimore, Maryland
Language: eng
Number of pages: 202
Subjects: Legal stories, English -- History and criticism.; English fiction -- History and criticism.; Courts in literature.; Law and literature.; Law in literature.; Literary form.
Description: "In The Art of Alibi, Jonathan H. Grossman reconstructs the relation of the novel to nineteenth-century law courts. During the Romantic era, courthouses and trial scenes frequently found their way into the plots of English novels.

As Grossman states, "by the Victorian period, theses scenes represented a powerful intersection of narrative form with a complementary and competing structure for storytelling." He argues that the courts, newly fashioned as a site in which to orchestrate voices and reconstruct stories, arose as a cultural presence influencing the shape of the English novel.".

"Weaving examinations of novels such as William Godwin's Caleb Williams, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Charles Dicknens's The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, along with a reading of the new Royal Courts of Justice, Grossman charts the exciting changes occurring within the novel, especially crime fiction, that preceded and led to the invention of the detective mystery in the 1840s."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [175]-196) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: 1. From scaffold to law court, from criminal broadsheet and biography to newspaper and novel; title: 2. Caleb williams and the novel's forensic form; title: 3. Mary Shelley's legal frankenstein; title: 4. Victorian courthouse structures, the Pickwick papers; title: 5. Mary Barton's tell-tale evidence; title: 6. The Newgate novel and the advent of detective fiction; title: Conclusion.