Views of the Role of History and Fiction in the Historical Novel

University of Alberta The Historical Novel and the Nation State, 1814-1900 by David Buchanan A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature ©David Buchanan Fall 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. For Mom and Dad Abstract The following is a work of literary history on the historical novel in nineteenth-century Britain, France, America, and Canada, combining history and criticism, using materials from politics, bibliography, and literature. Following upon earlier romance, gothic, national, and historical novels, Walter Scott’s combination of history and romance in Waverley, or ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (1814) offered a unique, effective, and influential means of describing and directing the social transformation and modernization of nation states. Honoré de Balzac, James Fenimore Cooper, and Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé built upon the success of Scott’s Waverley Novels (1814-31) by adapting formal and thematic resources to local circumstances, making the historical novel transnational in scope and national in application. Case studies of Scott’s Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818); Balzac’s Père Goriot (1835); Cooper’s Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea (1840); and Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens (1863) situate, describe, and trace the impact of such works: first, literary and print history situates initial production; second, narrative analysis describes the representation of modern identity and group formation; third, downmarket dissemination and cultural adaptation within and between nation states throughout the nineteenth century traces the extended impact on publishing, reading, and culture. Consideration of the historical novel as a historical, political, and popular form used to respond and contribute to conditions of modernity provides the information and analysis necessary for revaluation of the role and significance of such works in the development of the modern nation state. Acknowledgements The completion of this work was supported by several people and institutions. My wife, Zuzana, was the most important person in my life throughout, offering whatever support was necessary, whenever it was needed, always with enthusiasm and love; without her, all of this would have been a lot more difficult and not nearly as enjoyable. Gary Kelly provided expert guidance, professional support, and research opportunities enabling intellectual growth, academic development, and financial sustainability; otherwise, he was a great person to work with and I have benefitted significantly from his knowledge, experience, and generosity in many respects. Irene Sywenky supplied academic advice, professional support, and general encouragement that was always useful and much appreciated. The research and writing was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as the Faculty of Arts and the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Alberta. I was fortunate to have access to excellent resources at University of Alberta Libraries, not least of which are the friendly and knowledgeable librarians. Research trips to the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Scotland, Aberdeen Special Collections, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and Maison de Balzac were both fruitful and pleasant. Contents Introduction. Criticism and Methodology 1 Chapter 1. The Heart of Mid-Lothian 23 The Reading Nation and the Waverley Novel 23 Fields of Production 23 The Progress of Romance 26 The Waverley Novel 30 Conditions of Reception 35 Tales of My Landlord, Second Series 39 Modern Identity and Group Formation 42 Extensive Communication Networks 68 Reprints and Collections 69 Chapbooks and Abridgements 72 Melodramatic Adaptations 77 Multimedia 83 Chapter 2. Le Père Goriot 101 Modern Publishing and Popular Fiction 101 From Éditeur to Libraire 101 The Waverley Novels 105 Popular Literature and Historical Fiction 108 Le Père Goriot 114 Individual Trajectories and Social Change 117 Downmarket Dissemination 145 Print for the Masses 146 Reprints and Collections 151 Drame-vaudeville 154 Éditions populaires 159 Chapter 3. The Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea 175 National Expansion and Print Capitalism 175 Copyright and Distribution 175 National Print 178 The Modern Publisher 182 American Novels and Transatlantic Trade 186 The Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea 190 Frontier Myths and National Progress 193 Market Diversification 212 Industrial Production and Popular Reading 213 Reprints and Editions 220 Transnational Dissemination 226 Chapter 4. Les Anciens Canadiens 242 International Trade and Popular Novels 242 The Book Trade in British North America 242 Popular Reading and Historiography 245 International Novels and Walter Scott 251 French Canada and the Historical Novel 254 Les Anciens Canadiens 258 One State, Two Nations 259 The Politics of Cultural Production 289 Reprints and Translations 289 Le Roman du Colon 295 Drame en trois actes 307 Conclusion. Historicity, Actionability, and Modernity 321 1 Introduction Criticism and Methodology The historical novel is notoriously difficult to define. In On the Historical Novel (1840), Alessandro Manzoni concludes, “the historical novel is not a false genre, but a species of a false genre which includes all compositions that try to mix history and invention, whatever their form” (81). In The Art and Practice of Historical Fiction (1930), Alfred Tresidder Sheppard echoes the problem outlined by Manzoni: “It is not difficult to define fiction; the definition of historical fiction, on the other hand, presents innumerable, and at first unsuspected, difficulties” (12). Such difficulties have resulted in wide-ranging views of the role of history and fiction in the historical novel. György Lukács in The Historical Novel (1937) and Harry Henderson in Versions of the Past: The Historical Imagination in American Fiction (1974) argue that fiction and history cannot be separated; Lion Feuchtwanger in The House of Desdemona or The Laurels and Limitations of Historical Fiction (1963) and Floyd Watkins in In Time and Place: Some Origins of American Fiction (1977) argue that fiction and history are distinct. Whether or not the historical novel is even a genre is uncertain. Lukács, for example, does not separate the historical novel from the novel (242); he describes shifts in form and content relative to historical circumstances. If it is a genre, the means of categorization vary considerably. In “The Kinds of Historical Fiction: An Essay in Definition and Methodology” (1879), Joseph Turner suggests, “all we can say in general about the genre is that it resists generalization” (335) and leaves his own three-part categorization to the reader: “The necessity for the categories of 2 invented, disguised, and documented historical novels, therefore, is exclusively interpretive, a matter of differing expectations and conventions involved in our reading” (355). In “The Historical Novel and French Canada” (1945), David Hayne simply contends that the historical novel is a typical novel plus “emphasis on setting” (39). In The Historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 (2009), Richard Maxwell describes historical fiction as “hard to isolate” (8) and then focuses on specific themes or motifs in historical novels of various periods and contexts. Definitions of the historical aspect of the historical novel—the period of time between publication and setting—are no more helpful. In “Some Words About Sir Walter Scott” (1871), Leslie Stephen defers to the subtitle of Walter Scott’s Waverley, or ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (1814), suggesting that sixty years is appropriate (291) (although the setting of Scott’s novels range from Count Robert of Paris [1831], set in the eleventh century, to Saint Ronan’s Well [1823], set in the present). For Sheppard, whether a few minutes ago or a thousand years, it is all history and drawing a line is arbitrary (15). In The Historical Novel and Other Essays (1901), Brander Mathews suggests that historical novels are in fact contemporary productions: “In other words, the really trustworthy historical novels are those which were a-writing while the history was a-making” (18). Hayne brings up the subject but only differentiates between novels “historical in intention” (7) and those that have become historical over time. Feuchtwanger sees an important intermediary event as crucial: “One inclines to regard as being historical only novels set in an age antecedent to that of the author, but I simply can’t understand why a literary piece may not be designated as historical if the 3 time of its action is separated from the time of its writing by some decisive event” (101). In The English Historical Novel: Walter Scott to Virginia Woolf (1971), Avrom Fleishman says two generations; Henderson says “the world that

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