• 1. Sensibility, history and the novel; 2. 'The house of bondage': sentimentalism and the problem of slavery; 3. 'Delight in misery': sentimentalism, amelioration and slavery; 4. 'An easy, speedy and universal medium': canals, commerce and virtue; 5. 'Recovering the path of virtue': the politics of prostitution and the sentimental novel; 6. 'The dangerous tendency of novels' and the controversy of sentimentalism.

"This very learned study usefully analyzes the place of sentimentality in the literature and politics of late-18th- and early-19th-century England....A valuable addition to the literary history of sensibility." Choice

• 1. Sensibility, history and the novel; 2. 'The house of bondage': sentimentalism and the problem of slavery; 3. 'Delight in misery': sentimentalism, amelioration and slavery; 4. 'An easy, speedy and universal medium': canals, commerce and virtue; 5. 'Recovering the path of virtue': the politics of prostitution and the sentimental novel; 6. 'The dangerous tendency of novels' and the controversy of sentimentalism.

"This very learned study usefully analyzes the place of sentimentality in the literature and politics of late-18th- and early-19th-century England....A valuable addition to the literary history of sensibility." Choice

• 1. Sensibility, history and the novel; 2. 'The house of bondage': sentimentalism and the problem of slavery; 3. 'Delight in misery': sentimentalism, amelioration and slavery; 4. 'An easy, speedy and universal medium': canals, commerce and virtue; 5. 'Recovering the path of virtue': the politics of prostitution and the sentimental novel; 6. 'The dangerous tendency of novels' and the controversy of sentimentalism.

"This very learned study usefully analyzes the place of sentimentality in the literature and politics of late-18th- and early-19th-century England....A valuable addition to the literary history of sensibility." Choice