Visuality in the Novels of Austen, Radcliffe, Edgeworth and Burney

Examination of forms and functions of visuality in the novels of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney.

Visuality in the Novels of Austen, Radcliffe, Edgeworth and Burney argues that the proliferation of visual codes, metaphors and references to the gaze in women's novels published in Britain between 1778 and 1815 is more significant than scholars have previously acknowledged. The book's innovative survey of the oeuvres of four culturally representative women novelists of the period spanning the Anglo-French War and the Battle of Waterloo reveals the importance of visuality - the continuum linking visual and verbal communication. It provided women novelists with a methodology capable of circumventing the cultural strictures on female expression in a way that concealed resistance within the limits of language.