Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel by Liz Bellamy

British culture underwent radical change in the eighteenth century with the emergence of new literary genres and new discourses of social analysis. As novelists developed new forms of fiction, writers of economic tracts and treatises sought a new language and a conceptual framework to describe the modern commercial state. In Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel, Liz Bellamy argues that the evolution of the novel in eighteenth-century Britain needs to be seen in the context of the discursive conflict between economics and more traditional systems of social analysis. In a series of fresh readings of a wide range of novels, Bellamy shows how the novel contributed to the debate over public and private virtues and had to negotiate between commercial and anti-commercial ethics. The resulting choices were crucial in determining the structure as well as the moral content of the novel.

"..offer[s] lively and provocative readings of eighteenth-century fiction and insights into its provenance." John Russell Stephens
"Bellamy introduces new discourses and genres into the cultural mix from which the novel emerges and reenvisages what these discourses are trying to do..." Modern Philology

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780521622240
ISBN 10	0521622247
Title	Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Author	Liz Bellamy
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	1998-07-23
Number of pages	232
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.