Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction

Susan Griffin uncovers and analyzes the important but neglected body of anti-Catholic fiction written between the 1830s and the turn of the century in both Britain and America. Griffin examines Anglo-American anti-Catholicism and reveals how this sentiment provided Victorians with a set of political, cultural and literary tropes through which they defined themselves as Protestant and therefore normative. She draws on a broad range of writing including works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Kingsley, Henry James, Charlotte Bronte and a range of lesser-know writers. Griffin traces how nineteenth-century writers constructed a Church of Rome against which ‘America’, ‘Britain’ and ‘Protestant’ might be identified and critiqued. This book will be essential reading for scholars working on British Victorian literature as well as nineteenth-century American literature; it will be of interest to scholars of literary, cultural and religious studies.

• Offers insights into the study of religion and literature • Reads British and American literature together in a genuinely comparative analysis • Interdisciplinary work combining literary, historical and cultural studies

List of plates; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Awful disclosures: the escaped nun’s tale; 2. The dead father and the rule of religion: the Oxford Movement; 3. The foreign father and the sons of the sires: nativist novels of the 1850s; 4. Mariolatry, imperial motherhood, and manhood; 6. Under which lord? Ritualism, marriage and the law; 6. Black robes, white veils and foregone conclusions: Disraeli, Howells and James; Reliquaries; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

‘At the end of Susan Griffin’s valuable book … one is left with a sense of admiration at her methodological sureness of touch … Griffin’s perceptive and well-researched book offers much fascinating food for thought …’ James H. Murphy, DePaul University, Victorians Institute Journal

‘One of the lessons of 9/11 is that we ignore the politics of religion at our peril. Today\'s conflicts regarding faith have long, complicated histories, which we are just beginning to learn how to read and understand. Susan M. Griffin\'s Anti-Catholicism in Nineteenth Century Fiction is a major contribution to this work: a new cultural history of religion.’ John Carlos Rowe, USC Associates\' Professor of the Humanities, University of Southern California