The Romance of Gambling in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel (original) (raw)

The Romance of Gambling in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel, 2011

Abstract

From high-stakes Faro to lottery insurance to petty wagers, even to the very instruments of the Financial Revolution, gambling permeated the daily lives of eighteenth-century Britons of all classes. Jessica Richard argues that the romance of gambling, its celebration of the chance incalculable event, the heroic achievement against all odds, the lucky break, is foundational to eighteenth-century British culture and as such a central concern for the period's novels. Analyzing works by Richardson, Brooke, Smollett, Henry and Sarah Fielding, Burney, Radcliffe, Edgeworth, and Austen, along with gambling ephemera such as playing cards and games manuals, Richard shows that novelists use gambling scenarios not to tame chance but to interrogate its role in generic form and in a transforming capital economy inspired by and dependent on gambling.

Jessica Richard hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let Jessica know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.