The Disappearing Act: Heritage Making in Charlotte Riddell’s Novels

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Campo DC	Valore
dc.identifier	ECF_article_2909
dc.title	The Disappearing Act: Heritage Making in Charlotte Riddell’s Novels
dc.contributor.author	Colella Silvana
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Articolo
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2019/1/the-disappearing-act-heritage-making-in-charlotte/
dc.description.abstract	This article examines the strategies of heritage making in Riddell’s City novels, popular in the 19th century, but little known today. Drawing on late Victorian debates about the preservation of the past and its material remains, the article focuses on the relationship between fictional and non-fictional elements, in Riddell’s urban realism, which frequently pivots on heritage concerns. The main argument is twofold: 1) heritage discourse provides an apt frame for the self-validation of the author’s daring narrative choices; 2) Riddell’s understanding of heritage changes as her vision of capitalism darkens, culminating in a vocal denunciation of the destructive forces at work in the very idea of progress. Her novels generate heritage value in the very gesture of recording the many disappearing acts mournfully witnessed by the narrator.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 6 \| Dicembre 2019
dc.issued	2020-03-09
dc.dateAccepted	2019-11-19
dc.dateSubmitted	2019-09-04
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2019/06/003
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Business
dc.subject	Business
dc.subject	City of London
dc.subject	City of London
dc.subject	Heritage
dc.subject	Heritage
dc.subject	Preservationism
dc.subject	Preservationism
dc.subject	Realism
dc.subject	Realism

Articolo
open access peer reviewed

Silvana Colella Università degli Studi di Macerata, Italia

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abstract

This article examines the strategies of heritage making in Riddell’s City novels, popular in the 19th century, but little known today. Drawing on late Victorian debates about the preservation of the past and its material remains, the article focuses on the relationship between fictional and non-fictional elements, in Riddell’s urban realism, which frequently pivots on heritage concerns. The main argument is twofold: 1) heritage discourse provides an apt frame for the self-validation of the author’s daring narrative choices; 2) Riddell’s understanding of heritage changes as her vision of capitalism darkens, culminating in a vocal denunciation of the destructive forces at work in the very idea of progress. Her novels generate heritage value in the very gesture of recording the many disappearing acts mournfully witnessed by the narrator.

Pubblicato

09 Marzo 2020

Accettato

19 Novembre 2019

Presentato

04 Settembre 2019

Lingua

Keywords: Preservationism • Realism • City of London • Business • Heritage

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2019/06/003

Copyright: © 2019 Silvana Colella. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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