Trees in Nineteenth-Century English Fiction

This is a book about a longstanding network of writers and writings that celebrate the aesthetic, socio-political, scientific, ecological, geographical, and historical value of trees and tree spaces in the landscape; and it is a study of the effect of this tree-writing upon the novel form in the long nineteenth century.

Autorentext

Anna Burton is an early career researcher and teaching fellow at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests include long nineteenth-century literature, natural history, nature writing, and the afterlives of the 'Picturesque'.

Inhalt

Introduction

Chapter One

A Silvicultural Tradition

Single Trees and Remarkable Specimens

From Clumps to Forests: Trees in Combination

Gilpin and the New Forest

A Changing Woodscape: Preservation and Planting into the Nineteenth Century

Chapter Two

Arboreal Boundaries and Silvicultural 'Improvement' in the Literary Landscapes of Jane Austen

Silvicultural Dynamism: Arboreal Conversations and Characterisations

Trees, Improvement, and Maintaining Arboreal Boundaries

Chapter Three

The Presence and Absence of Trees in the Writings of Elizabeth Gaskell

The Topographies of Trees in Libbie Marsh's Three Eras and Ruth

'delicious air' and the Green Belt in North and South

Chapter Four

Reading Ancient Trees and Arboreal Strata in The Woodlanders

Arboreal Accumulation and the 'Billy Wilkins' Tree

Reading Stratigraphical Woodscapes: The Intersection of Aesthetics and Geology

Chapter Five

'Such is the Vale of Blackmoor': Navigating Trees, Memory, and Prospect in Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Topographical Perambulation and the Arboreal Margin

Accumulating Prospects and Retrospective Reflection, Tess as Active Spectator

Conclusion