Fashion and celebrity may be twenty-first century obsessions, but they were also key concepts in Regency culture. Both celebrated and condemned for their popularity, silver fork novels were extremely prolific during this period. These texts detailed the lives and loves of London fashionables and in doing so became a form of conduct book, offering guidelines for members of the socially aspirant middle class. Wilson looks at the social and literary impact of this significant genre and charts its role in the development of the novel as a form and its status in the literary marketplace.

"'this book offers a lucid and thorough introduction'"