English Industrial Fiction of the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Stephen Knight graduated from Oxford and worked from Lecturer to Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, 1964–86, then was Professor at the universities of Melbourne, De Montfort and Cardiff. In retirement he is an Honorary Research Professor at Melbourne. He has written books on the Robin Hood myth and also on crime fiction, Chaucer, the myth of King Arthur and, recently, nineteenth-century fiction. He has published over 150 academic articles and many reviews.

• PrefaceChapter 1 The Emergence of the Voice of the People1. First Accounts of Working People2. Resistance Voices3. Harriet Martineau4. The Voice of the WorkerChapter 2 Industrial Fiction Begins in the Factories1. Two Industrial Novelists: Charlotte Tonna and Frances Trollope2. The Factory Novel DevelopsChapter 3 Industrial Fiction: Accounts of Women Workers1. Recognising the Female Worker2. Tonna’s The Wrongs of Woman3. Seamstresses Widely Represented4. Women Workers in 1850s FictionChapter 4 Industrial Fiction: Accounts of Male Workers1. The Factory Novel in the 1840s2. Two Male Industrial Novelists: Thomas Frost and Ernest Jones3. Later Male Industrial FictionChapter 5 Industry in the work of Mainstream Authors1. Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby and Sybil2. Charles Kingsley, Yeast and Alton Locke3. Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton and North and South4. Charles Dickens, Hard Times5. Charlotte Bronte, Shirley, Geraldine Jewsbury, Marian Withers, George Eliot, Felix HoltChapter 6 Conclusion1. Texts, Themes and Contexts2. Patterns of Response3. Final Analysis4. AfterwardsBibliography

“While focusing on a distant time, at the climax of the industrial revolution, Knight’s book actually provides us with critical tools that help us achieve a better understanding of the resurging social conflicts (and therapeutic efforts) that mark the entire span of modernity. [Knight] has once again proved able to discuss a literary phenomenon in depth, in relation to a precise socio-political background, while also alerting us to a rich cloud of finely spun – but how solid! – connections”-- Maurizio Ascari, Università di Bologna