| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 202 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Introduction -- 1. From scaffold to law court, from criminal broadsheet and biography to newspaper and novel -- 2. Caleb williams and the novel's forensic form -- 3. Mary Shelley's legal frankenstein -- 4. Victorian courthouse structures, the Pickwick papers -- 5. Mary Barton's tell-tale evidence -- 6. The Newgate novel and the advent of detective fiction -- Conclusion |
| Summary |
"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."--Jacket |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-196) and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
|
English |
|
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Legal stories, English -- History and criticism
|
|
English fiction -- History and criticism
|
|
Courts in literature.
|
|
Law and literature.
|
|
Law in literature.
|
|
Literary form.
|
|
LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
|
|
Courts in literature
|
|
English fiction
|
|
Law and literature
|
|
Law in literature
|
|
Legal stories, English
|
|
Literary form
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2001002200 |
| ISBN |
0801877873 |
|
9780801877872 |
|
080186755X |
|
9780801867552 |
|
