Description
Lexington Books Stealing Things Theft and the Author in Nineteenth-Century France 2015 Edition by Rosemary A. Peters
Stealing Things traces the representations of thieves and thievery in nineteenth-century French novels. Re-reading canonical texts by Balzac, the Comtesse de Segur, and Zola through the lens of crime, Peters highlights bourgeois anxiety about ownership and objects while considering the impact of literature on popular attitudes about crime and its legislation and punishment. A detailed analysis of the role of objects, this work chronicles nineteenth-century changes in legal attitudes, popular mentalities, and individual and social identity, focusing particularly on the resulting transformations in representations of gender, class, and (criminal) subjectivity. Table of contents :- AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Codes for Honest People2. Objects of Fiction, Affairs of State 3. Time Bandits: Purloining the Pocket Watch 4. Identify Theft in the Second Empire 5. Out of the Shadows, Into the Shops: Theft, Gender, and Object Relations Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author