Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction

Griffin analyses anti-Catholic fiction written between the 1830s and the turn of the century in both Britain and America.

Susan Griffin uncovers and analyses 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-known 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.

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.

Griffin analyses the important but neglected body of anti-Catholic fiction written between the 1830s and the turn of the century in both Britain and America. This book will be essential reading for scholars working on British Victorian literature as well as nineteenth-century American literature.

Susan M. Griffin is Professor and Chair of the English Department at the University of Louisville. She is the editor of the Henry James Review and author and editor of numerous works including The Art of Criticism, The Historical Eye, and Henry James Goes to the Movies.