Portraiture and British Gothic Fiction: The Rise of Picture Identification, 1764-1835

Examples from British writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries show how portraits became a new mode of identity for the middle class.

Traditionally, kings and rulers were featured on stamps and money, the titled and affluent commissioned busts and portraits, and criminals and missing persons appeared on wanted posters. British writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, reworked ideas about portraiture to promote the value and agendas of the ordinary middle classes...