'Reconsidering Hall Caine: A Popular Novelist A Century Later'
Date(s): 2001
Creator(s): MacWilliams, David C.
Scope & Content: PhD dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. MacWilliams examines two of Hall Caine's novels, The Manxman and The Woman Thou Gavest Me and how they touch on some of the leading concerns of the day (including threats posed by Darwinism, degeneration, provincialism, divorce and changing gender roles) as well as employ conventions from an number of sub-genres of fiction. The dissertation abstract reveals that chapter one offers an overview of all of Hall Caine's novels and a discussion of the author's enormous popularity; chapter two examines the controversy surrounding the romance novel, then and now; chapters three and four offer close readings of pivotal scenes from each novel and a discussion of the social anxieties Hall Caine was examining; chapter five discusses Hall Caine's construction of male and female characters and in the conclusion Hall Caine's critical and personal reputations are examined. It is argued that his fall into obscurity is in part a result of a general ambience of misogyny in early modern criticism.
Language: English
Extent: 1 volume
Physical description: manuscript
Item name: dissertation
Collection: Manuscript Archive
Level: ITEM
ID number: MS 11562
Record class: Private
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