The Nineteenth Century English Novel

Through analysis of eight English novels of the Nineteenth century, this work explores the ways in which the novel contributes to the formation of ideology regarding the family, and, conversely, the ways in which changing attitudes toward the family shape and reshape the novel. Review: The subject and role of the father in the Victorian novel is certainly the central one for the fiction of the period, and the novels discussed are well-chosen to reveal the changing portrayal of the family and the figure of the father in the light of the political and social concerns of the period.

The selection of novels is various and wide-ranging, encompassing well-known works like Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Austen's Mansfield Park, Dicken's Dombey and Son, as well lesser known works like Thackeray's The Newcomes, Yonge's The Daisy Chain, and Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. What is innovative about Kilroy's approach to the nineteenth-century English novel is his effort to refocus the reader's attention on the father and issues of patriarchy in these novels at a time in which recent scholarship of the Victorian period has been dominated by feminist readings that downplay or distort the importance of patriarchal characters. --George H.

Gilpin, Professor of English and McFarlin Library Scholar-in-Residence, The University of Tulsa