Title The vulgar question of money : heiresses, materialism, and the novel of manners from Jane Austen to Henry James / Elsie B. Michie

Published Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 303 pages) Series UPCC book collections on Project MUSE Contents Social distinction in Jane Austen -- Frances Trollope and the problem of appetite -- Anthony Trollope's "subtle materialism" -- Beyond sentimental ethics: Margaret Oliphant, John Stuart Mill, and the emergence of the professional ideal -- "A new version of the old story": Henry James and the end(s) of the marriage plot Summary It is a familiar story line in nineteenth-century English novels: a hero must choose between money and love, between the wealthy, materialistic, status-conscious woman who could enhance his social position and the poorer, altruistic, independent-minded woman whom he loves. Elsie B. Michie explains what this common marriage plot reveals about changing reactions to money in British culture. It was in the novel that writers found space to articulate the anxieties surrounding money that developed along with the rise of capitalism in nineteenth-century England. Michie focuses in particular on the character of the wealthy heiress and how she, unlike her male counterpart, represents the tensions in British society between the desire for wealth and advancement and the fear that economic development would blur the traditional boundaries of social classes. Michie explores how novelists of the period captured with particular vividness England's ambivalent emotional responses to its own financial successes and engaged questions identical to those raised by political economists and moral philosophers. Each chapter reads a novelist alongside a contemporary thinker, tracing the development of capitalism in Britain: Jane Austen and Adam Smith and the rise of commercial society, Frances Trollope and Thomas Robert Malthus and industrialism, Anthony Trollope and Walter Bagehot and the political influence of money, Margaret Oliphant and John Stuart Mill and professionalism and managerial capitalism, and Henry James and Georg Simmel and the shift of economic dominance from England to America. Even the great romantic novels of the nineteenth century cannot disentangle themselves from the vulgar question of money. Michie's fresh reading of the marriage plot, and the choice between two women at its heart, shows it to be as much about politics and economics as it is about personal choice Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes English Print version record Subject Material culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Money in literature. Material culture in literature. English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. English fiction Manners and customs Material culture Material culture in literature Money in literature SUBJECT Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056952 Subject Great Britain Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book LC no. 2010050251 ISBN 9781421402321 1421402327

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