Title: Reading Daughters' Fictions 17091834
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.
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation, English Domestic fiction, English fiction, Family in literature, Fathers and daughters in literature, Fictional works, History, History and criticism, Patriarchy in literature, Romanticism, Women and literature, Women authors, Edgeworth, maria, 1767-1849, Domestic fiction, history and criticism, English fiction, women authors, English fiction, history and criticism, 18th century, English fiction, history and criticism, 19th century, Romanticism, great britain, Families in literature, Literature and morals, Literature and society, English fiction, history and criticism
Places: Great Britain
People: Manley Mrs. (1663-1724), Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849)
Time periods: 18th century, 19th century