Bastards and Foundlings: Illegitimacy in Eighteenth-Century England

by Lisa Zunshine

In this compelling interdisciplinary study of what has been called the "century of illegitimacy," Lisa Zunshine seeks to uncover the multiplicity of cultural meanings of illegitimacy in the English Enlightenment. Bastards and Foundlings pits the official legal views on illegitimacy against the actual everyday practices that frequently circumvented the law; it reconstructs the history of social institutions called upon to regulate illegitimacy, such as the London Foundling Hospital; and it examines a wide array of novels and plays written in response to the same concerns that informed the emergence and functioning of such institutions. By recreating the context of the national preoccupation with bastardy, with a special emphasis on the gender of the fictional bastard/foundling, Zunshine offers new readings of "canonical" texts, such as Steele's The Conscious Lovers , Defoe's Moll Flanders , Fielding's Tom Jone s, Moore's The Foundling , Colman's The English Merchant , Richardson's Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison , Burney's Evelina , Smith's Emmeline , Edgewort's Belinda , and Austen's Emma , as well as of less well-known works, such as Haywood's The Fortunate Foundlings , Shebbeare's The Marriage Act , Bennett's The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactor s, and Robinson's The Natural Daughter .

228 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 2005

About the author

Lisa Zunshine is Bush-Holbrook Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, where she teaches courses in Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature and culture. She is a former Guggenheim fellow (2007) and the author or editor of eleven books, including Bastards and Foundlings: Illegitimacy in Eighteenth-Century England (2005), Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (2006), Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Samuel Richardson (co-edited with Jocelyn Harris, 2006), Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative (2008), Acting Theory and the English Stage (2009), Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies (ed., 2010), Approaches to Teaching the Works of John Dryden (co-edited with Jayne Lewis, 2013), Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture (2012) and The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies (2015).

Reviews

[David Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting overview of bastardy in 18th Century England and some good studies into literature of the time. Particularly enjoyed the studies of 'The beggar girl and her benefactors', 'Emma' and 'Evelina'.

Some points made were a little repetitive and the academic writing style wasn't the easiest to read. Still recommend it highly.