Criminality and the Common Law Imagination in the 18th and 19th Centuries /Erin Sheley.
Criminality & the Common Law Imagination in the 18th & 19th Centuries
- Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, (c)2020.
- 1 online resource PDF file(s).
- Edinburgh critical studies in law, literature and the humanities .
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 19 Oct 2020).
Includes bibliographies and index.
Intro -- Criminality and the Common Law Imagination in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Tolbooth Door -- Part I Adultery as Actus Reus -- 1 Adultery, Criminality, and the Myth of English Sovereignty -- 2 The Gothic Law of Marriage -- Part II Child Criminality as Mens Rea -- 3 The "Faerie Court" of Child Punishment -- Part III The Rape Victim as Evidence -- 4 The Rape Novel and Reputation Evidence -- 5 Literary Rape Trials and the Trauma of National Identity -- Coda: Leaving Midlothian -- Bibliography -- Index
Through interdisciplinary readings of a range of literary and legal texts across a 200-year period, this book uncovers how the cultural narrative affected the development of the law itself in the 18th and 19th centuries in three case studies: adultery, child criminality and rape testimony.
9781474450126
English literature--History and criticism.--18th century English literature--History and criticism.--19th century Crime in literature. Law in literature. Crime--History--England--18th century. Crime--History--England--19th century. Literature and society--England--18th century. Literature and society--England--19th century.