Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: The Politics of Domesticating Culture, Then and Now -- 1. The Rise of Female Authority in the Novel -- The Logic of the Social Contract -- The Logic of the Sexual Contract -- The Sexual Contract as Narrative Paradigm -- The Sexual Contract as Narrative Process -- 2. The Rise of the Domestic Woman -- The Book of Class Sexuality -- A Country House That is Not a Country House -- Labor That is Not Labor -- Economy That is Not Money -- The Power of Feminization -- 3. The Rise of the Novel -- The Battle of the Books -- Strategies of Self-Production: Pamela -- The Self Contained: Emma -- 4. History in the House of Culture -- The Rhetoric of Violence: 1819 -- The Rhetoric of Disorder: 1832 -- The Politics of Domestic Fiction: 1848 -- Figures of Desire: The Brontës -- 5. Seduction and the Scene of Reading -- The Woman's Museum: Jane Eyre -- Modern Men: Shirley and the Fuegians -- Modern Women: Dora and Mrs. Brown -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

In this strikingly original treatment of the rise of the novel, Nancy Armstrong argues that the novels and nonfiction written by and for women in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England paved the way for the rise of the modern English middle class. Examining the works of such novelists as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Brontës, she reveals the ways in which these authors rewrote the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore desirable as well as influential.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.