The 'Invisible Hand' and British Fiction, 1818-1860

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction: Capitalist Moral Philosophy, Narrative Technology, and the Boundaries of the Nation-State

   1. Introduction: Capitalist Moral Philosophy, Narrative Technology, and the Boundaries of the Nation-State

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 1-18

3. Reading Adam Smith

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Imaginary Vantage Points: The Invisible Hand and the Rise of Political Economy

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 21-72

4. Early Nineteenth-Century Novels and Invisible Hand Social Theory

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

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   2. Omniscient Narrators and the Return of the Gothic in Northanger Abbey and Bleak House

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 75-119

   3. Providential Endings: Martineau, Dickens, and the Didactic Task of Political Economy

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 120-145

   4. Ripple Effects and the Fog of War in Vanity Fair

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 146-170

   5. Inappropriate Sympathies in Gaskell and Eliot

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 171-194

5. Conclusion: Realist Capitalism, Gothic Capitalism

   1. Conclusion: Realist Capitalism, Gothic Capitalism

      • Eleanor Courtemanche

      Pages 195-197

6. Back Matter

   Pages 198-251

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The 'invisible hand', Adam Smith's metaphor for the morality of capitalism, is explored in this text as being far more subtle and intricate than is usually understood, with many British realist fiction writers (Austen, Dickens, Gaskell, Eliot) having absorbed his model of ironic causality in complex societies and turned it to their own purposes.

• Adam Smith
• Charles Dickens
• fiction
• George Eliot
• Jane Austen
• Narrative
• novel
• political economy
• realism
• technology
• British and Irish Literature

'This book makes a strong case for the humanities through its interdisciplinary study of political economy in the nineteenth century...Courtemanche's theoretical framework is elegant and compelling. With the aid of Smith's metaphor, she contraposes a worm's-eye view with a bird's-eye view, and then uses this contraposed pair to represent the worker and the landowner, the economist and the literary philosopher, the literary character and the narrator.' - Leeann Hunter, New Books on Literature 19

• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

  Eleanor Courtemanche

ELEANOR COURTEMANCHE Assistant Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. She has also taught at Colby College, Macalester College, Claremont McKenna College, and Carleton College. In addition to Victorian studies, her research interests include German fiction, narrative theory, and the intersection between industry and aesthetics.

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