This thesis offers a critical examination of the works of Richard Head (1637-1686), a writer struggling to cater to popular demand in a period before the independent profession of letters became financially viable. Head's life and works have previously been neglected and no complete account or bibliography exists. A biography together with all the evidence about his life, introduces a discussion in order of publication of each of his fourteen extant works, with attention ,to previously unnoticed sources, to genre, social background, literary quality and influence. A bibliography of all the editions of Head's works published during his life-time, together with a list of all books consulted in preparing the thesis is appended.

This thesis examines Dickens's fiction within the context of nineteenth-century psychology, with particular emphasis on the developing concept of unconscious thought and states such as reverie, somnambulism and trance, which were seen as borderland territories between voluntary and involuntary mental activity. Fred Kaplan drew attention to this field in Dickens and Mesmerism (1975) and the past thirty years have brought a succession of stimulating articles broadening his focus. This is the first full-length study, and it aims to consolidate this piecemeal background and spark further effort by demonstrating the many ways in which the vibrant mess of discourses that comprised the fledgling science are at play in these texts. The breadth of Dickensian work available necessitates a selective approach and I focus on novels which reveal the evolution of theories of mind during the author's career. I sift the psychological material similarly, using books owned by Dickens as a skeleton and fleshing out arguments where appropriate with concepts widely disseminated in journals. The thesis charts a shift in the novels from a type of identity based on theories of associative memory propounded by Scottish Common Sense philosophers in the lateeighteenth century, to a less stable, more fragmented self founded upon the psychophysiological work of the mid-Victorian period. It argues the associative ideal of an integrated psyche rooted in domestic reminiscence is central to the early Dickensian vision of a socially engaged middle-class identity, and suggests later novels lament the loss of this dream and construct an increasingly solipsistic and conflictual model of the genteel psyche in its place. Further, it notes the texts' engagement with philosophical warnings about the addictive nature of daydream and fantasy, and asserts they offer metafictional justification of their own status as imaginary creations by seeking to transform readers in socially productive ways.

This thesis reinvigorates the subaltern theory of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak through the application of her work to readings of fiction in English by South Asian women. The writers included in the study are rooted in the contemporary nation states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and their Diasporas. The thesis argues for the endurance of Spivak's focus on issues of representation and her recognition of the problematic history of theoretical inattention to the ways in which gender inflects retrieval of the subaltern voice. The insights generated by her work frame this investigation of how literary narratives may replicate the shadowy presence of women in the archives of the postcolonial nation. It also demonstrates how literary strategies and double-voiced narratives intrinsically seek to complicate understandings of voice and silence within particular frames of understanding. Thus, the study registers how literary interventions negotiate the complex positioning of women within and between indigenous cultural traditions. Mapping out a politics of voice and silence in South Asian contexts, the introductory chapter critiques three key ideas embedded in Spivak's theory: subject-formation of the subaltern; the relationship between subalternity and textuality; and how hegemonic structures are vexed by considerations of gender. The connections between these theoretical considerations and literary representation are made through a consideration of the pertinent debates related to South Asian women's writing and the possibilities for a gendered subaltern voice-consciousness. Chapter Two examines Anita Desai's Voices in the City (1965) alongside Nayantara Sahgal's Rich Like Us (1985) as they depict the early periods of nation building in post-Independence India. Chapter Three considers The Thousand Faces of Night (1992) by Githa Hariharan for its evocations of contemporary India contingent upon the relationship between traditional mythology and gender constructions. A trajectory tracing patterns of female subalternity is then completed in Chapter Four with a discussion of two novels critically exploring the continuities of cultural encodings in transnational settings which are inflected by diasporic histories and movements. Kamila Shamsie's Salt and Saffron (2000) and Monica Ali's Brick Lane (2003) are read for their exploration of the tensions between nationalist identities and notions of home which influence constructions of selfhood. The application of Spivak's work to critical readings of South Asian women's writing situates the literature as a subaltern history. The interplay of theory and practice defines subalternity as a fluid and unsettled category of being to frame a comprehensive understanding of women's positioning within the discourses of nation; it registers changes in the concerns articulated in post-Independence South Asian writing; it provides nuanced critical readings of fiction alert to key literary and cultural developments. The thesis extends and develops Spivak's treatment of historical silence to identify how literature might form an alternative archive attuned to the complexities of voicing the subaltern figure.

This thesis investigates war and nation in Margaret Storm Jameson’s novels, paying close attention to those relating to World War Two. While building on recent work, which has aimed to revive Jameson’s literary reputation, this project concentrates not on her marginalisation but on her place within the wider literary landscape as a war writer. It argues that Jameson’s novels of this period speak to the evolution of nation and national identities during World War Two, but also that they constitute an important deviation from literary trends prevalent during this period: Jed Esty and Marina MacKay have observed that the beginning of World War Two marked a point when English writers sought to focus inward in their writing, prioritising ideas of Englishness and English identity. I argue that Jameson’s work during this time represents a move away from this tendency and instead constitutes a widening of vision and a deliberate focus away from England onto the continent. Reading novels from The Moon Is Making (1937) to Last Score (1961) alongside Jameson’s political essays, letters and critical work, I look at her presentations of nation and of Europe, arguing that Jameson’s desire to focus on European experiences of war at this time is symptomatic of her desire for an improved and united Europe after the war. This thesis is comprised of four chapters. The first chapter is an account of the evolution of Jameson’s thought and outlook in the 1930s, from an inward-looking isolationist pacifism in The Moon Is Making to a more expansive view of Europe under threat in later novels such as Europe to Let (1940). Chapter Two looks at the changing presentations of two nations, Czechoslovakia and Germany, at times of occupation and defeat in Then We Shall Hear Singing (1942) and The Other Side (1946), tracing the movement of Jameson’s attitudes to each nation at different stages of the war. Chapter Three moves to consider Jameson’s presentation of the stateless or those who can be understood as outside the nation during times of threat and occupation, from Jews and refugees to women, in novels such as Cloudless May (1943) and The Black Laurel (1947). Chapter Four examines the end of the war and the shift of international power represented by the Cold War, in The Moment of Truth (1949), The Hidden River (1955) and Last Score (1961). The thesis places these novels within their historical context, using contemporary and more recent theories of nation to identify their engagement with evolving discourses around both nation and Europe during World War Two. In doing so, I position Jameson as a key European writer of this period.

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This thesis examines the presentations of public schools as they appear in the Clarendon and Taunton Royal Commissions and in the works of selected contemporary novelists 1825-75 in order to explore different' visions of truth. On the one hand there is the socio-analytical explanation of the Commissions with their objectified factual evidence and statistics; on the other the explicit statements made by the novelists, all respected writers with a claim to . knowledgeability on the subject, and the imaginative interpretations which apl1ear in their artistic creations. Both social science and literary. theories suggest an anti thesis between "objective" reality as revealed by Commissions and the "subjective" reality of novelists. The two sets of materials are discussed under topics of curriculum, religion and morality, power and authority, and class consciousness - four areas which are major concerns of the Commissions and are also treated both explicitly and implicitly by novelists.

The period I have chosen for my discussion marks a time in the history of children's literature when the influences of Rousseauism and the Romantic age emit their most powerful impact upon the genre. It is a time when a "child-centred" form of fiction evolves, as the construction of childhood innocence reaches its peak, in an era considered to be a golden age of children's literature2. Therefore, the earliest text to be focused upon will be R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral island, published in 1858 and the latest will be Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, published in 1911. It is child-centred because the overtly moralistic tone of earlier children's literature, such as Maria Edgeworth's Early Lessons (1801), where Rosamond learns valuable lessons from her. mother, changes to stories that are seen to be more-entertaining and for the pleasure of the child.

Legal Immigrants is a darkly comedic fiction novel incorporating real-life news stories and historical research about lucrative German organized crime in the United States and abroad. The novel also details the bizarre misadventures that unravel when three motley siblings launch cataclysmic revenge on their significant others, whom they've learned are leading secret naughty lives. Brigitte Schneider, the eldest sibling, is a vigorous lawyer in Boston who just found out her boyfriend of five years has been sleeping with other women. Nikolaus, her middle-born brother, is a celebrity entertainment news producer in Manhattan who supports his manipulative 'actor' boyfriend. Their younger brother, Josef, is a strapping soccer star failing most his college classes in Tampa, whose pregnancy-faking girlfriend has been stealing from him since freshman year. In privileged Dallas society, their father, Xavier, CEO of the Schneider Building Company (a homebuilding and real estate facade for his illegal activity), must decide to whom he will leave the family business, now that he has survived a heart attack. His boisterous but stem Texan wife, Sofia, busies herself by preparing for the upcoming family reunion in Bavaria. Together, the Schneider siblings finally embrace the power and opportunity of their family's organized crime legacy - through suspenseful scheming and jovial, often alcoholic fraternal-sororal bonding. Legal Immigrants fuses together a sardonically dysfunctional family saga spanning over two decades with never-before-published factual organized crime information and an enthralling travel journey throughout South Germany.

The thesis provides the first detailed of biography of Stephen Reynolds, together with an assessment of his writings. It also seeks to place his work within the social context of the Edwardian era and to relate his achievement to that of certain other writers of the period. The biographical section has been drawn from Reynolds' own writings, including published and unpublished sources, but has also taken account of personal reminiscences of surviving relatives and friends. Reynolds' life-style was highly idiosyncratic. His abandonment of middle class society in favour of a working life as a fisherman illustrates the problems involved in a sustained attempt to cross the class barrier in the early years of the twentieth century. The thesis tries to present some at least of the motivations which led Reynolds to prefer the identity of a working fisherman to that of his actual social origins. It also traces his development as a writer from the setbacks of his early attempts at literary recognition to the distinct, if limited, success of such books as A Poor Man's House and Seems So and the subsequent diversion of his energies from writing fiction and essays into the praactical work of fisheries' administrator. In particular his contacts with Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad and and the English Review are given detailed treatment. Throughout, it is argued that Reynolds deserves recognition as a writer of both literary and social interest. The unusual circumstances of his life give credence to his point of view and he is to be valued both for the elegance and clarity of his style and as a significant interpreter of working class opinion at a time of accelerating social change. The appendices include a series of previously unpublished letters from Conrad to Reynolds.

This thesis offers a post-structural, psychoanalytical investigation into the representation of, and relationship between, internal texts, ghosts, and versions oftransgressive desire in five long stories written between 1890 and 1925; Vernon Lee's 'Amour Dure'(1890), Algernon Blackwood's 'The Listener' (1907), Oliver Onions' 'The Beckoning Fair One' and 'Hie Jacet' (1911), and Walter de la Mare's 'The Green Room'(l925). Although referencing the significance of Henry James to the era and themes, the main focus ofthe thesis is non-canonical. I am considering the alternative discursive space hollowed out for subversive subjectivities by meta-texts, and how these can be 'spectrally' read. This thesis offers close textual and theoretical analysis, with less emphasis placed upon historical and biographical details, which have become somewhat overly determined signifiers of, particularly the fin-de-siecle, time bracket. The choice of era is not, however, arbitrary and I am examining the impact ofthe socio-cultural anxieties of the end of Victorianism and the First World War, and how these inform upon and affect themes ofboth desire and haunting. I am concentrating on the inherently selfreflexive nature oftextuality, and how internal representations of texts succeed in ghosting the subject's fraught, and fundamentally transgressive, desiring process. I am closely working with feminist theories, largely pertaining to the body, death, and sexuality, as well as 'queer' theories of same sex desire and its subversive textual encryptions. The synthesis is upon the fragile boundaries of texts, and how these are articulated through a discourse ofghostliness: how texts transgress dichotomies, most notably those of absence and presence, male and female, sanctioned and censored desire. The drive ofthis thesis is to illustrate how narrative is fundamentally haunted by the repetitive story of its owndisruptive, internal desires.