Ruth Bienstock Anolik
Property and Power in English Gothic Literature
McFarland, Jefferson NC , 2015, 244 pp.
ISBN: 9780786498505
Dr. Ruth Bienstock Anolik provides a detailed discussion of property,
ownership, and power in English Gothic literature primarily of through novels
written in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and reflections on their
legal basis in English law in Property
and Power In English Gothic Literature. It also includes the concept of
women as property.
The literary works of Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, the Bronte sisters,
Wilkie Collins, Charlotte Mae Yonge, Elizabeth Gaskell, and a variety of others
are examined.
Primarily of interest to those involved with literary criticism, this
work also provides a rationale for the various stories and how they reflect the
views and legal situation of the period. She also notes diverse trends such as
industrialization, enclosure/clearance policies, attitudes toward the
aristocracy, inheritance laws, and copyright. She notes how several novels
feature a true heir as a peasant only to reveal he is of the aristocracy, while
the false heir is a usurper and often an illegitimate offspring or poser.
Ruth Bienstock Anolikteaches at Villanova University and writes
extensively on the Gothic mode. Her articles have been published in Modern
Language Studies, Studies in Jewish Literature, and other journals and
collections.
