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An Awkward Equilibrium

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Faithful Victorian

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Abstract

Jessie Fothergill’s novel, Healey; a Romance (1875), is set against a background of “strikes and industrial action” in a small fictional mill community in the north of England. In it, Fothergill explores “some of the moral, social and literary dilemmas of her time” (Debenham 2004: 68). Chief among the social problems Fothergill identified was the encroachment of the new industrial order on English provincial life. Indeed, her interest in and understanding of industrialism was strongly motivated by the transformation of northern England from a patriarchal-agrarian order into a society shaped by the commercial ethos of the city. In framing her account of the new economic and social order that would emerge from the clash between “city and country”, Fothergill consulted a number of key works on the harshness of the machine age, foremost among which was William Thornton’s (1869) book, On Labour: Its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues; Its Actual Present and Possible Future, a testament to its popularity and influence at the time.1

The one living writer whose abilities and acquirements I feel high respect.

—J. E. Cairnes on W. T. Thornton (1874)

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  1. Sim University, 461 Clementi Road, Singapore, Singapore

    Mark Donoghue

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Donoghue, M. (2016). An Awkward Equilibrium. In: Faithful Victorian. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58773-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58773-2_6

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