Literary Relations

The English literary tradition has been constituted as a patriarchal family. Great fathers are supposed to pass on a place to worthy sons, and the status of women's writing within the canon is contested. This book shows how kinship and mentoring relationships between writers helped to form the national tradition. Writers featured include Dryden, Congreve, Johnson, Burney, the Fieldings, the Wordsworths, and Austen.