by Neil Robinson (2002)
Set in the Nova Scotian settlement at Waipu, Northland, in 1860. Set against a montage of bushmen working the virgin kauri forests of Northland, merchants and street-wise opportunists in the young town of Auckland, and sea-faring traders of goods, men and human souls in the tropical islands of New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. This is the story of young Donald McKinnon, on his rite of passage, attempting to question the methods and ideas of the minister, Norman McLeod. He struggles with the expectations and values of his Presbyterian community, as he learns to express his love for the 'beautiful and good' Jessie McKay.
Marlene Tromp
"Exploring the central metaphor of marital violence in these novels, Marlene Tromp uncovers the relationship between the representations of such violence in fiction and in the law. Her investigation demonstrates that sensational constructions of gender, marriage, "brutal" relationships, and even murder, were gradually incorporated into legal debates and realist fiction as the Victorian understanding of what was "real" changed."--BOOK JACKET.
Jonathan H. Grossman
"In The Art of Alibi, Jonathan H. Grossman reconstructs the relation of the novel to nineteenth-century law courts. During the Romantic era, courthouses and trial scenes frequently found their way into the plots of English novels. As Grossman states, "by the Victorian period, theses scenes represented a powerful intersection of narrative form with a complementary and competing structure for storytelling." He argues that the courts, newly fashioned as a site in which to orchestrate voices and reconstruct stories, arose as a cultural presence influencing the shape of the English novel.". "Weaving examinations of novels such as William Godwin's Caleb Williams, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Charles Dicknens's The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, along with a reading of the new Royal Courts of Justice, Grossman charts the exciting changes occurring within the novel, especially crime fiction, that preceded and led to the invention of the detective mystery in the 1840s."--BOOK JACKET.
Angelique Richardson
"Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century recontextualizes New Woman writers, demonstrating that they were as concerned with the questions of poverty, sickness, and health as they were with the changing role of women, the issue for which they are currently generally known and celebrated. Focusing on fiction and the press, and drawing on the papers and published work of Galton and other eugenists, Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century reveals the cultural pervasiveness of eugenics and explores, for the first time, the intimate relations between early feminism and eugenics, making a radical contribution to nineteenth-century studies."--Jacket.
Angela McAllister
Abandoned to the workhouse after the death of her guardians, Cora Parry refuses to accept her fate. Under the tuition of persuasive streetrat Fletch, Cora finds herself reluctantly drawn deep into the Victorian underworld. As she is gradually seduced into a life of crime, Cora creates a persona for herself - Carrie - allowing her to separate her uneasy conscience from her actions. But soon things are spiralling out of control. Carrie is committing acts of crime that Cora knows she can't possibly have done. Where does Carrie end and Cora begin? Who is really in control, and where will it end?