Law and the Brontës

The Brontë bibliography has a new addition just published:

Law and the Brontës
Ian Ward
Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:  9780230251472
12 Dec 2011


It might be thought that the Brontë sisters did not write much about the law in their novels, certainly in comparison to contemporaries such as Dickens or Collins or Gaskell. But they did. Beneath the surface of the Brontë canon, the law is everywhere; from spousal abuse and child custody in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, to illegitimacy and inheritance in Wuthering Heights, to insanity and confinement in Jane Eyre, to broader questions of public governance in Shirley. In its examination of these themes and many more, Law and the Brontës represents a significant and highly original contribution to the study, not just of the Brontes and the mid-nineteenth century 'woman's novel', but also the situation of women in nineteenth century English law and the debates which moved around its prospective reform.

Table of contents:

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Brontë Cases
Huntingdon v Huntingdon
Heathcliff's Case
The Rochester Wives
The State and Shirley Keeldar
Conclusion: The Trials of Lucy Snowe
Bibliography
Index