The "family" is usually assumed to be a stable term; indeed, contemporary political rhetorics would have it to be the "bedrock" of society; references to "hard-working families" abound, and are therefore, of course, reduced to the level of cliché. The so-called "originating text" of gothic fiction was Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. The Gothic is absorbed, through and through, with the family: with its habits, with its disruptions, with its development. Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, of course, have developed Freud's ideas in further directions: toward, for example, the crypt, the place where the secrets of the family might be held, but forever sealed. To return to that arch-nationalist, Dracula: his sense of family is both overt and hidden. He is, in one sense, the acme of a good family man, while on the other he represents arrant individualism.

Critical QuarterlyVolume 59, Issue 4 p. 54-80 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POLITICAL SATIRE, EDITED BY CLARE BUCKNELL ‘Bill Posters Will Be Prosecuted’: radical broadsides of the 1790s John Barrell, John Barrell johncbarrell@gmail.com 01497 831035 The Old Hall, Brilley, Whitney-on-Wye, Herefordshire, HR3 6JFSearch for more papers by this author John Barrell, John Barrell johncbarrell@gmail.com 01497 831035 The Old Hall, Brilley, Whitney-on-Wye, Herefordshire, HR3 6JFSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 January 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/criq.12375Citations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume59, Issue4December 2017Pages 54-80 RelatedInformation

On the surface there is a great deal that unites the heroes who populate the novels written by women between 1778 and 1818, not the least of which is the domestic role that these gentlemen must play. Smith's heroes fit into the pessimistic model Burney establishes with Delvile. In Desmond, the hero has inherited his father's estate, and though he embraces revolutionary republicanism, he exhibits chivalric symptoms in his possessive obsession with Geraldine and her purity. Essentially, Burney, Smith, West, Edgeworth, and Austen have been engaged in a long-running feminist family romance, one with private and public significance. With West there is a shift away from heroes repressed by paternal influence. Edmund Herbert is remarkable for his independence in The Advantages of Education. The path to masculine reformation and gentlemanly independence is established as professionalization in Ennui, making …