The Anti‐Jacobin Novel: British Fiction, British Conservatism and the Revolution in France

Abstract

Despite much recent interest in the culture of conservatism and loyalism in late eighteenth-century Britain, little attention has been paid to the highly conservative ®ction of the decade or so either side of 1800. After considering why this has been the case, this article reveals that there were many more of these`anti-Jacobin' novels than has previously been thought. It then surveys the major themes which run through the novels, binding them together into a coherent literary±political genre. When taken as a whole, rather than as the work of many individual authors, these novels reveal much about the society which bought and borrowed them. As a commodity in a competitive market, rather than as deliberate propaganda, they evolved according to the values and opinions of that readership which, in eect, commissioned them. The way in which they comprehend and portray Jacobinism elucidates how the threat posed to Britain by the French Revolution was actually perceived and understood by a large section of the British population, and the consistent themes of the novels emphasize the points around which the popular conservative campaign was organized in the aftermath of the revolution. Jacobinism emerges as many things, but never as a purely philosophical or political danger. A list of the major anti-Jacobin novels is appended.

La question du citoyen actif : les conservateurs britanniques face à la Révolution française

“…These were not publications with any claim to literary quality, and they came from a tradition (the popular novel) which had previously been ignored by literary critics because their attraction was chiefly to young women and the lower orders, but they acquired a degree of literary respect in the revolutionary decade as authors, publishers and critics recognised their potential as a vehicle for conservative values with an audience of some breadth. 93 Jeremy Black, Bob Harris and Hannah Barker extended investigation of the newspaper press to the provincial papers as well as the London press, and all discussed the reaction of this influential genre to the Revolution in France. 94 Barker pointed out that the newspaper press was in a prime position to take advantage of the British public's voracious appetite for a constant flow of information about the Revolution in France, and that therefore 'its version of events was extremely influential'.…”

A cognitive approach to early conservatism

“…Studies on the English anti-Jacobin novel by Matthew O. Grenby (1998; and Kevin Gilmartin (2007, 150-206) as well as a modern edition of the most important examples of the genre by W. M. Verhoeven (2005) have only recently set the stage for a systematic examination of the role of literature in the formation of conservatism.…”

Le radicalisme anglais et la Révolution française

“…Il est certain que le patriotisme et l'anti-jacobinisme étaient des sentiments bien plus présents dans la société anglaise de la fin du XVIII e siècle que le radicalisme. Ceci explique que le loyalisme et le conservatisme dans les années 1790 aient fait l'objet de nombreuses études récentes 14 , conduisant un auteur à affirmer : « Il semble presque que les héritiers de Burke ont totalement chassé les héritiers de Paine des pages de l'historiographie » 15 . Cet article, toutefois, montrera que les « héritiers de Paine » restent vivants et actifs.…”