Populating the Novel: Literary Form and the Politics of Surplus Life

Emily Steinlight argues that nineteenth-century British writers' crowded literary worlds contributed to a seismic shift in British political thought by claiming a new cultural role in narrating human aggregation at a time when the Malthusian specter of surplus population became a central premise of modern politics. She demonstrates this through readings of novels by Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Mary Braddon, Thomas Hardy, and Joseph Conrad that link fiction and biopolitics, bringing the crowds that pervade nineteenth-century fiction into the foreground and transforming the subject and political stakes of the Victorian novel.

Format: Hardback
Length: 294 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2018
Publisher: Cornell University Press

Nineteenth-century British writers created worlds brimming with human life, surpassing the limits of their time. In her book "Populating the Novel," Emily Steinlight argues that this literary crowding played a significant role in shaping British political thought. She highlights how the nineteenth-century novel, in particular, assumed a new cultural role by addressing the issue of human aggregation at a time when the Malthusian specter of surplus population became a central premise of modern politics. Steinlight's analysis delves into readings of novels by Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Mary Braddon, Thomas Hardy, and Joseph Conrad, connecting fiction and biopolitics. By foregrounding the crowds that populate nineteenth-century fiction, Steinlight transforms the subject and political stakes of the Victorian novel. She challenges the traditional notion that the individual is the central category of the Victorian novel by demonstrating how fiction is shaped by its growing concern with population. By overpopulating narrative space and envisioning the human species as perpetually exceeding the existing social order, Steinlight reveals how fiction necessitated a radical reimagining of life in the aggregate.

Weight: 610g
Dimension: 164 x 238 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501710704