| This dissertation demonstrates the ways in which the British courtship novel of the late eighteenth-century engages the political and national concerns of the period through its use of narrative conventions. It focuses on readings of Frances Burney's Evelina, Frances Brooke's The Excursion, Charlotte Smith's Emmeline, Thomas Holcroft's Anna St. Ives, Sydney Owenson's The Wild Irish Girl, and Susan Ferrier's Marriage as examples of the ways in which courtship novels helped to establish and institutionalize British national identity. |
