Reform Acts: Chartism, Social Agency, and the Victorian Novel, 1832–1867

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Social Agency: The Franchise, Class Discourse, and National Narratives 1 part 1 making physical force moral: the dilemma of chartism, 1838–1842 2 Social Agency in the Chartist and Parliamentary Press 21 3 Egalitarian Chivalry and Popular Agency in Wat Tyler 37 4 Unconsummated Marriage and the “Uncommitted” Gunpowder Plot in Guy Fawkes 50 5 Class Alliance and Self-Culture in Barnaby Rudge 60 part 2 “the land! the land! the land!”: land ownership as political reform, 1842–1848 6 Agricultural Reform, Young England’s Allotments, and the Chartist Land Plan 75 7 The Landed Estate, Finely Graded Hierarchy, and the Member of Parliament in Coningsby and Sybil 85 8 Agricultural Improvement and the Squirearchy in Hillingdon Hall 102 9 The Land Plan, Class Dichotomy, and Working-Class Agency in Sunshine and Shadow 113 part 3 the social turn: from chartism to cooperation and trade unionism, 1848–1855 10 Christian Socialism and Cooperative Association 129 11 Clergy and Working-Class Cooperation in Yeast and Alton Locke 142 12 Reforming Trade Unionism in Mary Barton and North and South 164 Coda: Rethinking Reform in the Era of the Second Reform Act, 1860–1867 189 Notes 201 Works Cited 233 Index 245 viii contents ...