Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions

193 Pages·2013·1.166 MB·English

by  Trish Ferguson

Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
T
h
o
m
a
s

H
Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture a Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture
r
d
y
Series Editor: Julian Wolfreys
’s

L
Drawing on provocative research, volumes in the series provide timely revisions of the nineteenth- e
g
century’s literature and culture.
a
l

F
Thomas Hardy’s Legal Fictions
i
c
t
Trish Ferguson io
n
Explores the lasting cultural and political impact of s Thomas Hardy’s
the events of this remarkable year
Legal Fictions
This study maps the effects of a cartographic blankness in literature and its impact upon early Modernist
culture, through the nascent discipline of psychoanalysis and the debt that Freud owed to African
exploration. It demonstrates that tales of intrepid exploration and of dramatic cultural encounters between
indigenous populations – often serialised in missionary magazines – had a profound influence on every
facet of late Victorian and early Modernist culture. As Robbie McLaughlan shows, this influence manifested
itself most clearly in the late Victorian ‘best-seller’ which blended this arcane Central African imagery with
an interest in psychic phenomena. The chapters examine: representations of Black Africa in missionary
writing and Rider Haggard’s narratives on Africa; cartographic tradition in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and T
Trish Ferguson
Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections; and mesmeric fiction, such as Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, Robert r
i
Buchanan’s The Charlatan and George du Maurier’s Trilby. s
h

F
Key Features e
• Opens up the ‘dark continent’ and its literary, historical and theoretical manifestations r
g
• Argues for an anticipation of a modernist aesthetic suggesting an unexplored relation between fin de u
s
siècle sensation literature, in particular mesmeric fiction, and psychoanalysis o
• Diverges from established colonial histories by drawing on an archive of special and neglected material n
Robbie McLaughlan is an Affiliate at the University of Glasgow. He is working on the historical points of
intersection between culture and psychoanalysis.
Jacket design by Cathy Sprent E
d
Jacket images: from Megale chymia, vel magna alchymia, by Leonard Thurneisser, 1583
i
n
ISBN 978-0-7486-7324-7 b
u
r
g
h
9 780748673247
198 eup Ferguson JKT.indd 1 23/05/2013 21:14
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Thomas Hardy’s Legal Fictions
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture
Series Editor: Julian Wolfreys
Volumes available in the series:
In Lady Audley’s Shadow: Mary Elizabeth Walter Pater: Individualism and Aesthetic
Braddon and Victorian Literary Genres Philosophy
Saverio Tomaiuolo Kate Hext
978 0 7486 4115 4 Hbk 978 0 7486 4625 8 Hbk
Blasted Literature: Victorian Political London’s Underground Spaces:
Fiction and the Shock of Modernism Representing the Victorian City,
Deaglán Ó Donghaile 1840–1915
978 0 7486 4067 6 Hbk Hwang Haewon
978 0 7486 7607 1 Hbk
William Morris and the Idea of
Community: Romance, History and Moving Images: Nineteenth-Century
Propaganda, 1880–1914 Reading and Screen Practices
Anna Vaninskaya Helen Groth
978 0 7486 4149 9 Hbk 978 0 7486 6948 6 Hbk
1895: Drama, Disaster and Disgrace in Jane Morris: The Burden of History
Late Victorian Britain Wendy Parkins
Nicholas Freeman 978 0 7486 4127 7 Hbk
978 0 7486 4056 0 Hbk
Thomas Hardy’s Legal Fictions
Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity Trish Ferguson
and Racial Regeneration in Anglo- 978 0 7486 7324 7 Hbk
American Spiritualist Writing, 1848–1930
Christine Ferguson
978 0 7486 3965 6 Hbk Forthcoming volumes:
Dickens’s London: Perception, Her Father’s Name: Gender, Theatricality
Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban and Spiritualism in Florence Marryat’s
Multiplicity Fiction
Julian Wolfreys Tatiana Kontou
978 0 7486 4040 9 Hbk 978 0 7486 4007 2 Hbk
Re-Imagining the ‘Dark Continent’ in fin British India and Victorian Culture
de siècle Literature Máire ni Fhlathúin
Robbie McLaughlan 978 0 7486 4068 3 Hbk
978 0 7486 4715 6 Hbk
Women and the Railway, 1850–1915
Roomscape: Women Readers in the Anna Despotopoulou
British Museum from George Eliot to 978 0 7486 7694 1 Hbk
Virginia Woolf
Susan David Bernstein
978 0 7486 4065 2 Hbk
Visit the Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture web page at www.
euppublishing.com/series/ecve
Also Available:
Victoriographies – A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790–1914, edited by
Julian Wolfreys
ISSN: 2044-2416
www.eupjournals.com/vic
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Thomas Hardy’s Legal Fictions
Trish Ferguson
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
© Trish Ferguson, 2013
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire,
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 7324 7 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 7325 4 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 7326 1 (epub)
The right of Trish Ferguson
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Series Editor’s Preface viii
Introduction 1
1. ‘If You Only Knew Me Through and Through’: The
Domestic Trial Scene and Narrative Advocacy 19
2. ‘I Was Not in My Senses, and a Man’s Senses Are Himself’:
The Legal Defence of Insanity 51
3. ‘I Hate to be Thought Men’s Property in That Way’: Married
Women and the Law 89
4. ‘Waiters on Chance’: The Tichborne Claimant, Land Law
Reform and Rural Dispossession 132
Conclusion 157
Bibliography 165
Index 176
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Acknowledgements
While writing this monograph I have become indebted to a number of
friends and mentors. One of my greatest debts is to Nicholas Daly, who
helped shape my ideas at the early stage of my PhD in Trinity College
Dublin, where this project began. His patience, generosity and wit made
the early PhD years a great pleasure. My research also benefitted greatly
from the critical insight and advice of Jarlath Killeen, who guided me
through the final stages of the PhD. I am also very deeply grateful to
Phillip Mallett for sharing his great expertise on Thomas Hardy and his
unstinting generosity in assisting me with my research on Hardy and the
law from our first meeting at the Thomas Hardy Society Conference in
2006 through to the final stages of completion of the monograph.
During my years at Trinity I benefitted from the scholarly expertise,
friendship and support of a number of people who I am now privileged
to number among my friends; these include Darryl Jones, Margaret
Robson, Patrick Geoghegan, Orlaith O’Brien, Declan Treanor, Andrew
Costello, Deaglán Ó Donghaile, Daragh Downes and Edwina Keown.
Special mention is also due to Dee McKiernan, Cliodna McAleer, Jane
Carroll and Emma Clarke for their friendship and support. There are
also a number of staff of the Trinity College Library that I would like to
thank specifically for their help throughout my research, namely Tony
Carey, Paul Doyle, Eimear Hughes, Simon Lang and Greg Sheaf. I have
also gained enormously from my years of teaching in Trinity, and more
recently in Liverpool Hope University, from all my students who have
helped me to shape and articulate my ideas on Thomas Hardy and the
law. Thanks are also due to Cliodna McAleer and Neil Sargent for their
generous and very valuable contributions as legal experts in the final
stage of completing the monograph.
Present colleagues at Liverpool Hope are due heartfelt thanks for their
support and friendship during the writing of the draft of this monograph.
Alice Bennett, William Blazek, Cynthia Hamilton, Samantha McMillen
GGrraahhaammss HHDD::UUsseerrss::GGrraahhaamm::PPuubblliicc::GGRRAAHHAAMM''SS IIMMAACC JJOOBBSS::1144009999 -- EEUUPP -- FFEERRGGUUSSOONN ((EECCVVCC))::FFEERRGGUUSSOONN 99778800774488667733224477 PPRRIINNTT
Acknowledgements vii
and Sonja Tiernan all deserve special thanks for their support in the
final stages. I would also like to thank those who supported the Irish
Literature Lecture series at Liverpool Hope from October to December
2012, especially Graham Donelan and Ian Vandewalle, and those who
took part: Adrian Hardiman, Darryl Jones, Patricia Coughlan, Anne
Fogarty, Jarlath Killeen, Jane Carroll, Nicholas Daly, PJ Mathews,
Michael Kennedy and Terry Phillips. I am deeply grateful for all the
generous support given to me at Liverpool Hope University that enabled
me to benefit from this lecture series and that facilitated a research trip
to Dorset, allowing me to carry out archival work at the History Centre
at Dorset and the Dorset County Museum. I would also like to express
my heartfelt gratitude for the intellectual support and friendship I have
enjoyed through the Thomas Hardy Society. Special thanks are due to
Michael Irwin, Jane Thomas, Keith Wilson, Roger Ebbatson and Peter
Coxon for their warm support and generosity over the years.
Not least I would like to thank my family for their love and support –
my parents and also Martin and Nuala, Aisling, Saoirse, Caiomhe, John,
Maria, Séan and Orla, and my godparents, Sean and Patricia Cavanagh.
I would like to express my gratitude for the guidance and support given
to me by a number of people at Edinburgh University Press, namely
Julian Wolfreys, Jackie Jones and James Dale and the anonymous
readers who offered constructive and detailed advice on the shaping of
the monograph, which I hope is reflected in this final version. An earlier
version of Chapter One appeared as ‘Trial and Error in Thomas Hardy’s
Legal Fictions’ in the Thomas Hardy Journal (August 2008) and I am
grateful for permission to reprint this material.
Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT Grahams HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:14099 - EUP - FERGUSON (ECVC):FERGUSON 9780748673247 PRINT
Series Editor’s Preface
‘Victorian’ is a term, at once indicative of a strongly determined concept
and an often notoriously vague notion, emptied of all meaningful
content by the many journalistic misconceptions that persist about the
inhabitants and cultures of the British Isles and Victoria’s Empire in the
nineteenth century. As such, it has become a byword for the assumption
of various, often contradictory habits of thought, belief, behaviour and
perceptions. Victorian studies and studies in nineteenth-century litera-
ture and culture have, from their institutional inception, questioned nar-
rowness of presumption, pushed at the limits of the nominal definition,
and have sought to question the very grounds on which the unreflec-
tive perception of the so-called Victorian has been built; and so they
continue to do. Victorian and nineteenth-century studies of literature
and culture maintain a breadth and diversity of interest, of focus and
inquiry, in an interrogative and intellectually open-minded and challeng-
ing manner, which are equal to the exploration and inquisitiveness of
its subjects. Many of the questions asked by scholars and researchers of
the innumerable productions of nineteenth-century society actively put
into suspension the clichés and stereotypes of ‘Victorianism’, whether
the approach has been sustained by historical, scientific, philosophical,
empirical, ideological or theoretical concerns; indeed, it would be incor-
rect to assume that each of these approaches to the idea of the Victorian
has been, or has remained, in the main exclusive, sealed off from the
interests and engagements of other approaches. A vital interdisciplinar-
ity has been pursued and embraced, for the most part, even as there has
been contest and debate amongst Victorianists, pursued with as much
fervour as the affirmative exploration between different disciplines and
differing epistemologies put to work in the service of reading the nine-
teenth century.
Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture aims to take up
both the debates and the inventive approaches and departures from
GGrraahhaammss HHDD::UUsseerrss::GGrraahhaamm::PPuubblliicc::GGRRAAHHAAMM''SS IIMMAACC JJOOBBSS::1144009999 -- EEUUPP -- FFEERRGGUUSSOONN ((EECCVVCC))::FFEERRGGUUSSOONN 99778800774488667733224477 PPRRIINNTT
Series Editor’s Preface ix
convention that studies in the nineteenth century have witnessed for
the last half century at least. Aiming to maintain a ‘Victorian’ (in the
most positive sense of that motif) spirit of inquiry, the series’ purpose
is to continue and augment the cross-fertilisation of interdisciplinary
approaches, and to offer, in addition, a number of timely and untimely
revisions of Victorian literature, culture, history and identity. At the
same time, the series will ask questions concerning what has been missed
or improperly received, misread, or not read at all, in order to present
a multi-faceted and heterogeneous kaleidoscope of representations.
Drawing on the most provocative, thoughtful and original research, the
series will seek to prod at the notion of the ‘Victorian’, and in so doing,
principally through theoretically and epistemologically sophisticated
close readings of the historicity of literature and culture in the nineteenth
century, to offer the reader provocative insights into a world that is
at once overly familiar, and irreducibly different, other and strange.
Working from original sources, primary documents and recent inter-
disciplinary theoretical models, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian
Culture seeks not simply to push at the boundaries of research in the
nineteenth century, but also to inaugurate the persistent erasure and
provisional, strategic redrawing of those borders.
Julian Wolfreys