The Literature of Change

First published in 1977, this book studies three important nineteenth-century novelists: Mrs Gaskell, William Hale White and Thomas Hardy. They are all provincial novelists who wrote about social change and the attendant problems and pressures this brought with it. Unlike previous critics, who have tended to concentrate on her social-problem novels, here the author treats Gaskells Sylvias Lovers and Cousin Phillis as central texts. However a chapter also examines Gaskell and Engels perception of social change in Manchester. This book also seeks to correct Hale Whites neglect, anointing Revolution in Tanners Lane and Clara Hopgood major works. The survey of women in Hardys novels represents an illuminating new angle and leads on to a discussion of love and marriage in later Victorian fiction.