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The Counterfactual History Novel in Nineteenth-Century British Literature Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Open Access Dissertations Theses and Dissertations January 2015 The ounC terfactual History Novel in Nineteenth- Century British Literature Elizabeth Moline Cuddy Purdue University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations Recommended Citation Cuddy, Elizabeth Moline, "The ounC terfactual History Novel in Nineteenth-Century British Literature" (2015). Open Access Dissertations. 1107. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1107 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. i THE COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY NOVEL IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Elizabeth M. Cuddy In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy i December 2015 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana ii This work is lovingly dedicated to my family. ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to complete this journey without my committee’s guidance, Purdue University faculty and staff’s assistance, friends’ support, and my family’s unflagging encouragement. Special thanks to Dr. Manushag Powell for her invaluable advice and encouragement during the writing and revision process. If there are alternative universes out there, I can only hope that my counterparts are so fortunate as to have her as an advisor. Warm thanks are also owed to the rest of my committee: Dr. Emily Allen, Dr. Dino Felluga, and Dr. Kristina Bross for their insightful commentary and suggestions. I must also recognize members of Purdue University’s faculty and staff whose aid and expertise made navigating the perilous mazes of paperwork and the seas of library research possible. In particular, I’d like to thank the English Department’s Jill Quirk and the Humanities Social Sciences and Education librarians and staff. Time is a precious gift, especially when given from one doctoral candidate to another. The feedback and companionship given by Laura Eidam, Nancee Reeves, iii Heather Nelson, and Adam Watkins during the each stage of the writing process was deeply appreciated. (On a less solemn note: we did it!) Despite my best efforts, a body cannot live on research alone. I must recognize those who habitually helped me escape from academia—for at least a few hours at a time. iv Life in graduate school would have been very different without the friendship of Abigail Moore, Jillian Canode, and Billy Sands. I also owe recognition in a similar vein to the staff of the West Lafayette Public Library—particularly Gale Charlotte, Ruth Cushman, Nancy Hartman, and Bekke Aaron—whose conversation was a bright spot in each day. Lastly, I must express my gratitude to my family. Your generosity and encouragement is the foundation upon which I have built every good thing in my life, including this academic project. I could not have done it without you. My parents, Thea and Michael, instilled a love of learning in me at an early age, and they—along with my sisters, Catherine and Anne, and my brother-in-law, Sam—have collectively borne the many manifestations of my love of literature and history with no small amount of patience, grace, and good humor. To my family, immediate and extended, I dedicate this project with all my love and affection. iv v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 History in Early Nineteenth-Century British Fiction ..................................................... 4 History’s Rise as an Academic Discipline ..................................................................... 9 Contemporary Scholarship and the Counterfactual History Novel ............................. 11 Chapter Contents .......................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER ONE. A COUNTERFACTUAL REVOLUTION: SIR WALTER SCOTT, REDGAUNTLET, AND THE HISTORY NOVEL .......................................................... 16 The Jacobite Risings and Sir Walter Scott’s Redgauntlet ........................................... 18 Reading Redgauntlet’s Histories................................................................................. 25 Folklore and History ............................................................................................... 27 Women and the History of House Redgauntlet ...................................................... 33 Writing Legal Histories ........................................................................................... 41 Redgauntlet’s Reception in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture .................. 48 Closing ......................................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER TWO. PLAYING WITH HISTORY: THE BRONTË JUVENILIA’S WRITTEN WORLD ......................................................................................................... 63 v “We wove a web in childhood”: The Genesis of the Glass Town Saga ...................... 69 “Miss Brontë, what are you thinking about?”: Student, Teacher, and Writer ............ 79 “O Angria Arise!”: Charlotte Brontë’s Glass Town Saga ........................................... 83 Introducing Arthur Wellesley (and Eleven Other Adventurers) ............................. 84 The Many Counterfactual Layers of the Glass Town Saga .................................... 89 vi Page “Now I come to my own loved home”: The Voices of the Glass Town Federation ............................................................................................................... 98 A “Farewell to Angria”? ............................................................................................ 105 CHAPTER THREE. POLITE FICTIONS: THE COUNTERFACTUAL STRATEGIES OF MARY ANNE EVANS ............................................................................................ 119 Mary Anne Evans, the Women Question, and Feminist Literary Scholarship .......... 122 Mary Anne Evans’ Many Names ............................................................................... 124 Introducing George Eliot ...................................................................................... 125 Seeking George Eliot ............................................................................................ 128 Presenting a Genuine George Eliot ....................................................................... 131 Introducing Dinah Morris .......................................................................................... 139 A Counterfactual Conclusion for Adam Bede ............................................................ 141 From Pseudonym to Counterfactual Persona: Mary Anne Evans’ Polite Fictions in Life and After Death .................................................................................................. 145 CODA ............................................................................................................................. 155 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 158 VITA ............................................................................................................................... 179 vi vii ABSTRACT Cuddy, Elizabeth M. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2015. The Counterfactual History Novel in Nineteenth-Century British Literature. Major Professor: Manushag Powell. Although scholarship has long since established the history novel’s general course, few critical readings of the history novel address the innovative means through which writers could manipulate the use of history within these novels. My dissertation explores how Britons’ fascination with history not only shaped the progress of the history novel throughout the nineteenth century, but also directly influenced a specific type of narrative within this developing subgenre: the counterfactual history novel. It is worth taking the long view when considering the history novel, as it was— and is—an important form for literary experimentation and interdisciplinary discussion. While this project’s immediate goal is to establish the significance of the counterfactual history novel’s rise, its broader objective is to reassess the history novel’s place in nineteenth-century British literary culture. By arguing that the history novel—via the vii counterfactual history novel—played a crucial role in the development of nineteenth- century Britons’ historical consciousness, this dissertation expands our awareness of how widely history and literature were transformed over the course of this century. It is through the variable medium of the counterfactual history novel that history novelists viii were able to expand the boundaries of the history novel and, in doing so, assist in the creation of a new literary subgenre, speculative fiction. viii 1 INTRODUCTION History narratives were very much in vogue throughout the nineteenth century in Britain, their form and content varying widely to fulfill the reading public’s needs.1 Although literary scholarship has long since established the history novel’s general course—it was recognized as the preeminent form of the novel at the beginning
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