Hammond, Mary (2018) Wayward orphans and lonesome places: the regional reception of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton and North and South. Victorian Studies, 60 (3), 390-411. (doi:10.2979/victorianstudies.60.3.02).
Abstract
This paper re-assesses previous accounts of the distinction between mid-nineteenth-century regional and provincial novels through an analysis of their appearances as fragmented, pirated extracts in the non-metropolitan press. Using two of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels as exemplars and drawing on digitized newspapers, it demonstrates that in order to fully understand the relationship between these two sub-genres and the relative radical or conservative politics that have often been assumed to attend them, we must look beyond the formal properties of their author-sanctioned appearances in both volume and serial form, and analyse their creative re-use by small newspapers as part of local identity-building. The paper argues that in taking into account the embedding of fragments of fiction within local, provincial and regional print cultures, we can arrive at a more nuanced reading of their politics, and understand better their responsiveness to their own historical moments.
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- Faculties (pre 2018 reorg) > Faculty of Humanities (pre 2018 reorg) > English (pre 2018 reorg)
Current Faculties > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Humanities > English > English (pre 2018 reorg)
English > English (pre 2018 reorg) - Faculties (pre 2018 reorg) > Faculty of Engineering and the Environment (pre 2018 reorg) > Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute (pre 2018 reorg)
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