Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION 1 "A FRIGHTFUL OBJECT" Romance, Obsession, and Death in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" 2 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABJECTION, AND THE COMIC NOVEL Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers 3 VIOLENCE, CAUSALITY, AND THE "SHOCK OF HISTORY" George Eliot's "Janet's Repentance" 4 "THE SINS OF THE FATHER" AND "THE FEMALE LINE" Phantom Visitations and Cruelty in Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Poor Clare" 5 RAPE, TRANSGRESSION, AND THE LAW The Body of Marian Erle in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh 6 "WILL SHE END LIKE ME?" Violence and the Uncanny in Wilkie Collins's Man and Wife CONCLUSION NOTES WORKS CITED INDEX

About the Author

Kate Lawson is Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern British Columbia. Lynn Shakinovsky is Associate Professor of English at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Reviews

"Extremely well researched and well written, this book melds an intelligent reading of imagery and story with a nuanced theoretical framework, a good sense of historical context and social history, and a genuine concern for domestic violence against women in the nineteenth century. I find this book very illuminating." - Joseph Adamson, coeditor of Scenes of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame, and Writing "This reading of domestic violence, which is 'behind the scenes' in several senses, is intellectually important, and speaks to a wide variety of issues in Victorian studies, feminism, legal studies, and psychoanalysis." - Randall Craig, author of Promising Language: Betrothal in Victorian Law and Fiction