Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel
What do #MeToo and Jane Austen have in common? More than you might think.

Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. Dr Zoë McGee reveals how Jane Austen, Frances Burney and their now-overlooked contemporaries used their stories to try to change society’s mind about rape culture – and to reassure survivors they were not alone.

Courting Disaster takes a timely deep-dive into a series of classic novels, comparing them with both historic court records and current events to show that our arguments about consent are not a new phenomenon. With the wit and wryness of a courtship novel, McGee reads between the lines to unveil a quiet feminist movement that still resonates today. Because every novel about marriage is also a novel about consent.

In an era that’s clamouring for a return to the values of the past, Courting Disaster asks what that would really mean, and whether anyone actually liked it back then anyway…

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Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel
What do #MeToo and Jane Austen have in common? More than you might think.

Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. Dr Zoë McGee reveals how Jane Austen, Frances Burney and their now-overlooked contemporaries used their stories to try to change society’s mind about rape culture – and to reassure survivors they were not alone.

Courting Disaster takes a timely deep-dive into a series of classic novels, comparing them with both historic court records and current events to show that our arguments about consent are not a new phenomenon. With the wit and wryness of a courtship novel, McGee reads between the lines to unveil a quiet feminist movement that still resonates today. Because every novel about marriage is also a novel about consent.

In an era that’s clamouring for a return to the values of the past, Courting Disaster asks what that would really mean, and whether anyone actually liked it back then anyway…

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Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel

Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel

by Zoë McGee
Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel

Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel

by Zoë McGee

Hardcover

$29.95 
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Overview

What do #MeToo and Jane Austen have in common? More than you might think.

Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. Dr Zoë McGee reveals how Jane Austen, Frances Burney and their now-overlooked contemporaries used their stories to try to change society’s mind about rape culture – and to reassure survivors they were not alone.

Courting Disaster takes a timely deep-dive into a series of classic novels, comparing them with both historic court records and current events to show that our arguments about consent are not a new phenomenon. With the wit and wryness of a courtship novel, McGee reads between the lines to unveil a quiet feminist movement that still resonates today. Because every novel about marriage is also a novel about consent.

In an era that’s clamouring for a return to the values of the past, Courting Disaster asks what that would really mean, and whether anyone actually liked it back then anyway…


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781526188854
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Publication date: 11/04/2025
Pages: 328
Product dimensions: 5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Zoë McGee has a PhD from Queen Mary University of London and an MSt in eighteenth-century studies from the University of Oxford. She has spoken at conferences internationally and now performs at very nerdy stand-up comedy nights. Among other things, she has worked as a university teacher, a bookseller and a professional board-game-explainer. She owns too many books and is a competitive ballroom dancer in her spare time.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Consent
1 Clarissa, or The Perfect Victim Myth
2 Cecilia, or Credit and Credibility
3 Jane Doe, or Misreading the Room
Part II: Innocence
4 Ophelia, or Resisting the Unknown
5 Camilla & Eugenia, or What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
6 Evelina, or The Value of Virginity
Part III: Violence
7 Anon., or The Context of the Courtroom
8 Mary, or Violating Convention
9 Theodora & Dorothea, or The Bystander Effect
Part IV: Marriage
10 Elinor, or Honouring Engagements
11 Fanny, or The Price of Refusal
12 Anne, or Negotiating the Future
Conclusion
Index

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