Research Catalog

Title

Trees in nineteenth-century English fiction : the silvicultural novel / Anna Burton.

Author

Burton, Anna

Publication

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 218 pages : illustrations (black and white); 24 cm.

Summary

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.Trees in Nineteenth-Century English Fiction: The Silvicultural Novel identifies the picturesque thinker William Gilpin as a significant influence in this literary and environmental tradition. Remarks on Forest Scenery (1791) is formed by Gilpin's own observations of trees, forests, and his New Forest home specifically; but it is also the product of tree-stories collected from 'travellers and historians' that came before him. This study tracks the impact of this accumulating arboreal discourse upon nineteenth-century environmental writers such as John Claudius Loudon, Jacob George Strutt, William Howitt, and Mary Roberts, and its influence on varied dialogues surrounding natural history, agriculture, landscaping, deforestation, and public health. Building upon this concept of an ongoing silvicultural discussion, the monograph examines how novelists in the realist mode engage with this discourse and use their understanding of arboreal space and its cultural worth in order to transform their own fictional environments. Through their novelistic framing of single trees, clumps, forests, ancient woodlands, and man-made plantations, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Thomas Hardy feature as authors of particular interest. Collectively, in their environmental representations, these novelists engage with a broad range of silvicultural conversation in their writing of space at the beginning, middle, and end of the nineteenth century.

Series Statement

Routledge environmental humanities

Uniform Title

Routledge environmental humanities.

Subject

• 1800-1899
• English fiction > 19th century > History and criticism
• Trees in literature
• English fiction

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Call Number

JFE 21-6708

ISBN

• 0367369044
• 9780367369040

OCLC

1201655966

Author

Burton, Anna, author.

Title

Trees in nineteenth-century English fiction : the silvicultural novel / Anna Burton.

Publisher

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Routledge environmental humanities

Routledge environmental humanities.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Other Form:

ebook version : 9781000367614

Research Call Number

JFE 21-6708