Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
2024
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Source Publication
The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literatures in English
Source ISSN
9781003271208
Original Item ID
DOI: 10.4324/9781003271208-22
Abstract
The law underwent significant changes in eighteenth-century Britain. Although these changes resulted in an expansion of rights and freedoms for some British subjects, the liberalization of the law was far from complete. This chapter considers how writers working in a range of genres revealed the limits of the law, focusing on debates about the nature and ends of criminal justice, the legal regulation of marriage, and the legality of slavery and the slave trade. In different ways and to different degrees, the chapter shows, writers challenged and reimagined the inequalities inscribed in and fostered by the legal system.
Recommended Citation
Ganz, Melissa J., "Literature and the Law" (2024). English Faculty Research and Publications. 629.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/english_fac/629
Comments
Accepted version. “Literature and the Law,” in The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literatures in English, ed. Sarah Eron, Nicole N. Aljoe, and Suvir Kaul (New York: Routledge, 2024): 203-215. DOI. © 2024 Taylor & Francis (Routledge). Used with permission.