Getting Lost in the Novel - Strategic Confusion in Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century British

Instances abound in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels where characters, particularly female characters, become lost, often moved by overwhelming emotion. Amanda Auerbach delves into the impact of these scenes on the character and the reader. On one level, 'getting lost' can realign a character's and our own sense of self and of social situation, while more broadly these instances reflect arcs within the overall narrative, highlighting easily-missed elements, sometimes even reflecting on our own experiences while reading. The emotions that move characters most powerfully often relate to their psychological needs, which the social conditions of their lives prevent them from meeting or fully acknowledging. These episodes appear across multiple novels in multiple subgenres, including the marriage plot, the gothic novel, the Victorian bildungsroman, and the sensation novel. These episodes collectively reveal how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British novelistic subgenres developed to help women and working-class readers covertly satisfy their psychological needs.

List of contents

Introduction; Part I. 'Psychological' Subgenres: 1. Ending up alone with a man in the eighteenth-century marriage-plot Novel; 2. Getting carried away in the Victorian bildungsroman; Part II. Popular Subgenres: 3. Absorption and the satisfactions of competence in the gothic novel; 4. Mood management in sensation fiction; Conclusion: the limitations and privilege of lostness; Works cited; Index.

About the author

Amanda Auerbach is an Assistant Professor of English at Catholic University of America, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Her articles have appeared in European Romantic Review and Victorian Literature and Culture. Her book of poems, What Need Have We For Such as We, was published in 2019.

Product details

• Authors: Amanda Auerbach, Amanda (Catholic University of America Auerbach
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.08.2025
• EAN: 9781009585514
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0958551-4
• No. of pages: 180
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; English, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Narrative theme: Interior life, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Narrative theme: displacement, exile, migration, Literary studies: general, Feminism and feminist theory, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Classic fiction: general and literary, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form