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Book contents
- British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century
- British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Every Common Reader”
- Chapter 2 Perpendicular Publics
- Chapter 3 Ambivalence, Survival, and Law in Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year
- Chapter 4 The Court of Justice and the Court of Conscience
- Chapter 5 “A Higher Tribunal”
- Chapter 6 Mansfield, Burrow, and the Reformulation of the Legal Decision
- Chapter 7 Novel Subjects
- Chapter 8 Common Law and Cultural Difference in Scott’s Ivanhoe and Chronicles of the Canongate
- Chapter 9 The Legal Character of Paupers in Early Nineteenth-Century England
- Chapter 10 Liberty in “Parenthesis”
- Chapter 11 Yearning for Restriction in the Romantic Novel
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2025
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Book contents
- British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century
- British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Every Common Reader”
- Chapter 2 Perpendicular Publics
- Chapter 3 Ambivalence, Survival, and Law in Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year
- Chapter 4 The Court of Justice and the Court of Conscience
- Chapter 5 “A Higher Tribunal”
- Chapter 6 Mansfield, Burrow, and the Reformulation of the Legal Decision
- Chapter 7 Novel Subjects
- Chapter 8 Common Law and Cultural Difference in Scott’s Ivanhoe and Chronicles of the Canongate
- Chapter 9 The Legal Character of Paupers in Early Nineteenth-Century England
- Chapter 10 Liberty in “Parenthesis”
- Chapter 11 Yearning for Restriction in the Romantic Novel
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Introduction examines the emergence and development of law and literature as an interdisciplinary field, while highlighting the ways in which eighteenth-century studies has contributed to and been shaped by the enterprise. Over the past twenty-five years, scholars have examined numerous connections between the era’s legal and literary discourses, emphasizing the formal complexities of both legal and literary texts. The chapters in this volume build upon and extend this body of work, taking up topics including the nature of legal and literary interpretation, the role of legal rhetoric in Britain’s industrial economy, the desire for and resistance to law during public health crises, the regulation of the legal profession, the emergence of the modern judicial decision, the place of law in Britain’s expanding empire, and the role of law in maintaining and rectifying gendered, racial, religious, and class-based inequalities. The Introduction presents an overview of these case studies, reflects on themes running through the volume, and offers suggestions for future work in the field.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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