Dying to be English:

Suicide Narratives and British Identity, 1721–1814

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Kelly McGuire

Gender and Genre

Enlightenment assumptions regarding the gendering of suicide still persist in coroners' investigations, statistical analyses and the media's coverage of high-profile deaths. This study examines the presentation of suicide within the genre of the eighteenth-century novel as both a feminine action and a declaration of national identity. A perceived rise in suicide rates in the eighteenth-century led to the topic’s elevation from a purely private ‘exit strategy’ to its identification as an ‘English Malady’ and its treatment within the novel as a public, society-defining gesture. McGuire argues that the cultural medium of the novel affords a space to examine representations of suicide, as female characters do not merely take their lives in these works; they sacrifice themselves to another or to a larger cause.

Using the novels of several key writers of the period, including Frances Burney, Eliza Haywood and Samuel Richardson, McGuire demonstrates that their work inscribes a nationalist imperative to frame suicide as self-sacrifice. By considering the eighteenth-century novel as a cultural document, she combines literary analysis with cultural history, creating an innovative and challenging picture of the relationship between suicide, gender and national identity.

Readership

Literature, Romanticism, History of Medicine, Social and Cultural History and Gender Studies

Contents

Introduction
1 Spectres, Recluses and Citizens: Suicidal Hauntings in Eliza Haywood's Amatory Fiction
2 Mors Voluntaria: Martyr Narratives and Questions of Agency in Clarissa
3 'Corruptible Bodies': English Maladies and Material Culture at Mid-Century
4 Viral Concerns: Print Culture, True Crime and the 'Werther Effect' in Sentimental Fiction and the Jacobin Novel
5 'Renovated Beings': Vitalism and the Transnational in Frances Burney's The Wanderer

Related titles

• Charlotte Smith in British Romanticism
• Depression and Melancholy, 1660–1800
• A Political Biography of Frances Burney
• Samuel Richardson's Published Commentary on Clarissa, 1747–1765
• Selected Works of Eliza Haywood
• The Complete Plays of Frances Burney
• The History of Suicide in England, 1650–1850
• The Works of Charlotte Smith

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