San Antonio College Library

"During the eighteenth century, the activity of conversation was repeatedly portrayed as a morally improving and socially cohesive activity. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the early nineteenth century, however, speakers and writers could not always work with such confidence. Many worried that manners were being eroded into mannerisms, many more were becoming conscious that their speech was fraught with the potential for deceit and misunderstanding."...

"This book is a study of the attitude of the leading novelists of the eighteen century to the contemporary class system and to current trends in philosophy and education"--Preface

Domna Stanton discusses self-fashioning among French aristocrats in the seventeenth century.

This informative social history chronicles the rise and fall of an intriguing social phenomenon--the ideal of a gentleman--tracing its history from Chaucer's "gentle knight," through the Victorian era, to the present day

In a new treatment of Eliot's booklength fiction, Alley argues that from the very moment she adopted a male pseudonym through to the major epic and tragic novels of her later life, the transcendence of fame was her major consideration. Focusing on one novel in each chapter, the study shows how the plights of Eliot's heroines and heroes do not end in frustration but in an affirmation of anonymous achievement, "the growing good of the world." For Eliot,...

"In a series of influential essays that appeared in Harper's, W.D. Howells argued for literature as a vehicle for social change. Literature could and should, Howells suggested, mediate across divisions of class and region, fostering cross-cultural sympathies that would lead to comprehensive social and ethical reform." "Paul R. Petrie explores the legacy of Howells's beliefs as they manifest themselves in his fiction and in the works of three major...

This book examines the intersection between courtesy and understanding in works by Berkeley, Pope, Sterne, Johnson, and Boswell. It shows how each of these writers represents a conversational environment in which men and women, discussing general concerns on an equal footing, were able to achieve what the age described as "common sense." In one of his Idlers, Johnson indicated the problems involved in such an achievement as follows: "As a question...