The American Revolution in English Popular Fiction, 1775-1810

FAIN: FT-12664-75

Louise Z. Smith
University of Massachusetts, Boston (Boston, MA 02125-3300)

Historical fiction, the artistic demonstration of history as the precondition of the present, is often assumed to begin with Scott's novels. This assumption overlooks the testimony of late 18th century popular fiction about the American Revolution. The novels of Bage, Holcroft, Gowin, and others recognized in the Revolution a recurrence of civil war. Their novels thus form an aesthetic transition from the historical costumery of mid-century gothic and oriental romances to the 19th century historical novel. The proposed study would evaluate the aesthetic contribution of these historical novelists to the growth of the English novel and would examine their responses to philosophical and historical change.