Tory Daughters

A new book, partially related to the Brontës, has arrived in the bookstores recently. Nation and Novel. The English Novel from its Origins to the Present Day, written by Patrick Parrinder and published by Oxford University Press.

What is 'English' about the English novel, and how has the idea of the English nation been shaped by the writers of fiction? How do the novel's profound differences from poetry and drama affect its representation of national consciousness?

Nation and Novel sets out to answer these questions by tracing English prose fiction from its late medieval origins through its stories of rogues and criminals, family rebellions and suffering heroines, to the present-day novels of immigration. Major novelists from Daniel Defoe to the late twentieth century have drawn on national history and mythology in novels which have pitted Cavalier against Puritan, Tory against Whig, region against nation, and domesticity against empire. The novel is deeply concerned with the fate of the nation, but almost always at variance with official and ruling-class perspectives on English society.

There is a chapter that deals with Charlotte Brontë among some other notable travel companions:
Chapter 8. Tory Daughters and the Politics of Marriage: Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and Elizabeth Gaskell.

Categories: Books, Charlotte_Brontë, Scholar