Rutgers University Press Narrative Mourning: Death and Its Relics in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850)

Narrative Mourning explores death and its relics as they appear within the confines of the eighteenth-century British novel. It argues that the cultural disappearance of the dead/dying body and the introduction of consciousness as humanity's newfound soul found expression in fictional representations of the relic (object) or relict (person). In the six novels examined in this monograph - Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; Sarah Fielding's David Simple and Volume the Last; Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling; and Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho―the appearance of the relic/relict signals narrative mourning and expresses (often obliquely) changing cultural attitudes toward the dead. Review "[Narrative Mourning's] clearly marked conclusions...eloquently and often lyrically summarize the concerns of each chapter and section while signposting the more difficult arguments in the interest of accessibility."-- "Eighteenth-Century Fiction""'Death and loss haunt the eighteenth-century British novel, '" writes Kathleen M. Oliver in her compelling study, Narrative Mourning. From Clarissa Harlowe's mourning rings to her own corpse in Clarissa; from portraits to wax effigies in The Mysteries of Udolpho; from relics to relicts in David Simple, Volume the Last, and Grandison; from torn manuscript to lively spectral narrator in The Man of Feeling, Oliver's careful readings limn the dynamic 'lives' of eighteenth-century literary remains."--Mary Elizabeth Hotz "author of Literary Remains: Representations of Death and Burial in Victorian England""Oliver's study represents a fascinating and welcome addition to eighteenth-century literary studies. Considering the novel of sensibility and the gothic novel in relation to death, Narrative Mourning addresses contemporary beliefs about death, the dead body, the soul, and the material objects associated with death. Oliver explores relics--objects such as waxen transi and hair jewelry--and relicts--the people left behind after a death occurs. Throughout, she offers a number of insightful readings, from the high body count of David Simple and its sequel, to Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison with the mock-widow and pseudo-ghost Clementina della Porretta, to the haunting narrative strategies of The Man of Feeling."--Bonnie Latimer "author of Making Gender, Culture and the Self in the Fiction of Samuel Richardson""With its extensive close readings of both the novel of sensibility and the Gothic novel, Kathleen M. Oliver's Narrative Mourning: Death and Its Relics in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel compellingly argues for the cultural disappearance of the dead in its lucid examination of relics and relicts in fictional representations of death and loss. Its distinctive focus on objects, persons, and ghosts offers a fascinating and well-needed study of the role of melancholy and mourning in the eighteenth-century novel."--Jolene Zigarovich "author of Writing Death and Absence in the Victorian Novel" About the Author Kathleen M. Oliver is the author of Samuel Richardson, Dress, and Discourse, and her essays on Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Frances Sheridan, Charlotte Smith, and William Wycherley have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and scholarly collections. In 2002, she received the Emilie du ChÂtelet Award for Independent Scholarship, bestowed by the Women's Caucus of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.