Abstract
The chapter argues that Frances Brooke’s The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763) draws on friendship principles identified by Enlightenment thinkers such as Jeremy Taylor, Jeremy Collier and Francis Hutcheson. It investigates how this epistolary novel uses friendship virtues not only to distinguish characters and their sociable interactions, but also as the main dynamic of the plot, which contrasts and occasionally counteracts a story whose progress follows the narrative convention of the heterosexual romance. An eighteenth-century genre innovation, this strategy separates plot dynamic from story development and combines sentimental appeal with an ethical validation of personal friendships and communal sociability. It shows friendship to be essential for the well-being of the community, as it dignifies people’s selfish impulses in a reconciliation of beneficent affection and utilitarian motives.
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Notes
- 1.
All subsequent quotations are taken from this edition of the novel.
- 2.
I would like to thank Clíona Ò Gallchoir for pointing out this aspect in her response to my paper at ISECS 2019.
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Berndt, K. (2021). ‘Musick in their Company’: (Per)Forming Friendship and Early Enlightenment Sociability in Frances Brooke’s The History of Lady Julia Mandeville . In: Domsch, S., Hansen, M. (eds) British Sociability in the European Enlightenment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52567-5_10
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