Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions

Trish Ferguson

Thomas Hardy’s fiction is examined in this book in the context of the seismic legal reforms of the nineteenth century as well as legal discourse in the literature of the era. The book examines the ways in which Hardy’s role as a magistrate and his interest in the law impacted fundamentally on his prose fiction. It demonstrates that throughout his prose fiction Hardy engages with contentious legal issues that were debated by legal professionals and literary figures of his day, and argues that Hardy used fiction as a forum to question the extent to which legal reform improved the lives of women and the working classes.

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Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-v

Acknowledgements
pp vi-vii

Series Editor's Preface
pp viii-x

Introduction
pp 1-18

1 - ‘If You Only Knew Me Through and Through’: The Domestic Trial Scene and Narrative Advocacy
pp 19-50

2 - ‘I Was Not in My Senses, and a Man's Senses Are Himself’: The Legal Defence of Insanity
pp 51-88

3 - ‘I Hate to be Thought Men's Property in That Way’: Married Women and the Law
pp 89-131

4 - ‘Waiters on Chance’: The Tichborne Claimant, Land Law Reform and Rural Dispossession
pp 132-156

Conclusion
pp 157-164

Bibliography
pp 165-175

Index
pp 176-178

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Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions

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