British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740–1830

In British Fiction and the Production of Social Order Miranda Burgess examines what Romantic-period writers called 'romance': a hybrid genre defined by a shared role in the negotiation of conflicts between political economy and moral philosophy. Reading a broad range of fictional and non-fictional works published between 1740 and 1830, Burgess places authors such as Richardson, Scott, Austen and Wollstonecraft in a new economic, social and cultural context. She explores the interaction between writing and the formation of community, particularly in relation to issues of legitimacy and gender. Burgess argues that the romance held a key role in remaking the national order of a Britain dependent on ideologies of human nature for justification of its social, economic and political systems.