E-Book Overview
The Afterlife of Character, 1726-1825 reconstructs how eighteenth-century British readers invented further adventures for beloved characters, including Gulliver, Falstaff, Pamela, and Tristram Shandy. Far from being close-ended and self-contained, the novels and plays in which these characters first appeared were treated by many as merely a starting point, a collective reference perpetually inviting augmentation through an astonishing wealth of unauthorized sequels. Characters became an inexhaustible form of common property, despite their patent authorship. Readers endowed them with value, knowing all the while that others were doing the same and so were collectively forging a new mode of virtual community.By tracing these practices, David A. Brewer shows how the literary canon emerged as much "from below" as out of any of the institutions that have been credited with their invention. Indeed, he reveals the astonishing degree to which authors had to cajole readers into granting them authority over their own creations, authority that seems self-evident to a modern audience.In its innovative methodology and its unprecedented attention to the productive interplay between the audience, the book as a material artifact, and the text as an immaterial entity, The Afterlife of Character, 1726-1825 offers a compelling new approach to eighteenth-century studies, the history of the book, and the very idea of character itself.
E-Book Content
The Afterlife of Character, –
M AT E R I A L T E X T S Series Editors Roger Chartier Joan DeJean Joseph Farrell Anthony Grafton Janice Radway Peter Stallybrass
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
The Afterlife of Character, – David A. Brewer
University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia
Copyright © University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brewer, David A. (David Allen), – The afterlife of character, – / David A. Brewer. p. cm. — (Material texts) Includes bibliographical references and index. --- (cloth : alk. paper) . English literature—th century—History and criticism. . Characters and characteristics in literature. . Intellectual property—Great Britain—History—th century. . Intellectual property—Great Britain—History—th century. . Authors and readers—Great Britain— History—th century. . Authors and readers—Great Britain—History—th century. . English literature—th century—History and criticism. . Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) . Sequels (Literature) I. Title. II. Series. . .''—dc
For Rebecca, a more-of-the-same girl, and for Charlotte and Lucian, whose first word was, in each case, “more”
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Contents
Cottagers upon the Textual Commons, an Introduction
The Invention of the Fictional Archive
Visualization, Theatricality, Fame
Character Migration, Detachability, Old Friends
Lewd Engraftments and the Richardsonian Coterie Public
Shandyism and the Club of True Feelers Scott’s Parental Interest, an Afterword Notes
Bibliography Index
Acknowledgments
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I have said somewhere it is the unwritten part of books that would be the most interesting. — William Makepeace Thackeray
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Cottagers upon t