Bastard Foundlings: Illegitimacy in Eighteenth-Century England

In This 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 Jones, Moore's The Foundling, Colman's The English Merchant, Richardson's Clarissa And Sir Charles Grandison, Burney's Evelina, Smith's Emmeline, Edgeworth'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 Benefactors, And Robinson's The Natural Daughter.--jacket. Bastard Daughters And Foundling Heroines : Rewriting Illegitimacy In The Conscious Lovers -- Moll Flanders And The English Shelter For Bastards -- Kicking Out The Cubs : The Wrong Heirs Of Richardson's Clarissa -- Tom Jones : Resisting The Mythologization Of Bastardy -- Female Philanthropy, The London Foundling Hospital, And Richardson's The History Of Sir Charles Grandison -- The Children Owned By None : Divided Bastardy In Frances Burney's Evelina -- Harriet Smith In Brunswick Square : Common Sense Bastardy In Austen's Emma -- Postscript : Bbc Rewrites Tom Jones's Illegitimacy. Lisa Zunshine. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 173-218) And Index.