Skip to main content
  • Book
  • © 2017

Fictions of Friendship in the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Palgrave Macmillan

Authors:

  • Demonstrates that novelists use both Classical and Enlightenment thinking about friendship to negotiate their relationships to the reading audience
  • Demonstrates the ways novelists mobilize the rhetoric of amity as a framing metaphor of narrative form and reception because of its social import
  • Shows that ideal friendship becomes a central link between the rhetoric and narrative content of early fictions

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.

Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
  2. Introduction: “Errant Stuff”

    • Bryan Mangano
    Pages 1-20
  3. Forging Friendships in Print

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21
  4. Female Authorship and Friendship’s Narrative Economies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81
  5. Liberties and Limits of Fraternal Friendship

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139
    2. Epilogue

      • Bryan Mangano
      Pages 209-216
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 217-298

About this book

This book explores the reciprocal influence of friendship ideals and narrative forms in eighteenth-century British fiction. It examines how various novelists, from Samuel Richardson to Mary Shelley, drew upon classical and early modern conceptions of true amity as a model of collaborative pedagogy. Analyzing authors, their professional circumstances, and their audiences, the study shows how the rhetoric of friendship became a means of paying deference to the increasing power of readerships, while it also served as a semi-covert means to persuade resistant readers and confront aesthetic and moral debates head on. The study contributes to an understanding of gender roles in the early history of the novel by disclosing the constant interplay between male and female models of amity. It demonstrates that this gendered dialogue shaped the way novelists imagined character interiority, reconciled with the commercial aspects of writing, and engaged mixed-sex audiences.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Cornell College , Mt. Vernon, USA

    Bryan Mangano

About the author

Bryan Mangano currently lectures at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, USA. He has published articles in Eighteenth-Century Fiction and Texas Studies in Literature and Language.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access