This blog post discusses (correction: rambles on about) some of the novels of Thomas Wolfe and Frances Burney, focusing on some thoughts I have about these works concerning race, gender, social class, and disability.
I’d not heard of Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) before George R. R. Martin mentioned him in a Not a Blog post back in mid-July, when referencing the affecting title of You Can’t Go Home Again (1940). (Its words were first spoken by Wolfe’s friend, the activist and journalist Ella Winter, from whom he asked permission to use them as his novel’s title.) So I checked it out — and there sure is a lot to consider, good and bad (to use such mild, sterilising words). Of course there’s the titular focus, the ‘“The Hollow Men”’ chapter later in the book, the searing critiques of bureaucracy and capitalism, the depiction of men on Wall Street, Esther Jack underestimating her significant wealth by only considering it in relation to the 15% earning more than her, rather than the 85% earning less. But throughout is a constant patriotism; the ‘hope’ that’s referred to at the end was what I feared, and an individualism that never dies. And it was this that gave me the idea to write a few things here — and about Frances Burney, but I’ll get to her shortly.
I didn’t really grow up a bookworm, so I’ve never been able to consider myself much of a ‘critical reader,’ and so when I kept hold of these points throughout and then found an essay written by Professor Rebecca Godwin — President of The Thomas Wolfe Review — that, in of course more detail, discusses a few of these points, I felt… validated? (But what an individualist thing to say!) This individualism shines through particularly when the protagonist George Webber — based on Thomas Wolfe — travels to Germany in 1936. (So this blog post doesn’t go on forever, I’ll avoid plot points where necessary.)
To summarise, the chapters boil down to Webber thinking, ‘Hm, there does seem to be something in the air, something tense, many are keeping low and quiet — but why? This is Germany, Germany loves me! It loved my first novel and is right now translating my second. Whatever might be going on, it isn’t affecting me… so is there even a problem?’ It’s deeply uncomfortable to read (as is a lot else in the novel, and its prequel, The Web and the Rock (1939)). It’s clear that only when Webber himself witnesses an instance of brutality from the Nazi regime does he become aware of it. The cruelness he observes is the State not allowing a man, a passenger on the train Webber is riding to Paris, to cross the border owing to a restriction in the amount of money a person can cross with. (The man is revealed to be Jewish, and who is never named, and is, of course, stereotyped from the start — and such antisemitic depictions of unnamed Jewish characters is also seen in the money-lender in Frances Burney’s Cecilia — as is, for example, the Black character Dick Prosser in the prequel, which, to an extent, I initially thought could possibly be down to such descriptions refracting through the racist South of George’s boyhood — not to say such would excuse the harm done through such description, but instead it’s clear they’re Wolfe’s racist views,* views that scholar Paschal Reeves considered Wolfe to be trying to overcome later in his (short) life… even though these two books mentioned here were published posthumously.) Godwin cites Professor Robert Brinkmeyer by saying that this instance ‘was a stunning moment for Wolfe, lashing together Nazi repression with his silent complicity.’ But ultimately, as is seen in the novel and argued by Godwin, this instance of guilt and re-evaluation is nonetheless centred on the individual.
(*Despite the sympathy that appears to be expressed towards destitute Black characters in You Can’t Go Home Again, who are exploited by Judge Bland — a man from George’s past — this loan shark is still, ultimately, meant to be sympathised with. And then there are the endless instances of Wolfe writing dialogue to mimic characters of colour and poorer white characters (while many others, the protagonist included, seemingly don’t have accents at all, they are the default…). I wonder why I even chose to stick through reading these books at all, with all their racism and classism and misogyny and all. It’s not exactly something you can excuse while you seek out instances where Wolfe is capturing something truly haunting and indescribable — and describes it.)
Issues of race also manifest in the work of Frances Burney (1752–1840), notably her final novel The Wanderer (1814). (It received scathing reviews at the time, which I’d argue has harmed it to this day, burying it further than her other works — novels and plays — though there has seen a renewed interest of late. These reviews were largely misogynistic, centred around the novel’s secondary title Female Difficulties: male reviewers considered the difficulties of women to be minor, if they even existed at all, making the novel pointless. With such a response, the novel only affirms itself! Go, Elinor, go!))
Race — that which isn’t the invisible kind — is often forgotten in these kinds of stories: stories of young, white, wealthy characters living in the countryside with their handkerchiefs and horses, and Burney’s works are much the same, though not in The Wanderer. The titular character (again, I will avoid plot points) is travelling from France to England across the Channel to escape the Terror of the French Revolution. (Something really interesting I thought was how she captured various English characters’ names for Robespierre and how these varied along class lines; some farmers in the story refer to him as ‘Robert Speer.’) To disguise herself — to avoid detection from those who may have been sent to look for her — she darkens her skin, and is mistaken for a few chapters to be a Black woman. During this time, she is intensely criminalised. Scholar Tara Czechowski argues that Burney, instead of simply reproducing racialised ideas, probes this racist view of Black identity and criminality… yet it nonetheless remains deeply uncomfortable that the character does this and how the other characters react upon finding out that she is, after all, white.
Further to this, however, and not seen often in other such stiff, cosy, tea-drinking novels, Burney shows the racism and exploitation on which such a society is based. In one scene a Black domestic slave appears — only once and for an incredibly brief moment. Even though this house of Miss Ireton’s is visited again on several occasions, this character never appears again. I always hoped for more, even just one more moment, despite the harsh treatment he suffers in the first scene, to see the characters faced with this cruelty again, if nothing else. To see Burney continuing to write, to at least shed a few more photons of light onto this system of oppression and exploitation, to entirely juxtapose it with the quaint setting so revered in classic novels and period pieces, would be more than so many works set in a similar period — by white writers. (Shortly after posting this, my partner and I were talking about this and she made a really insightful point — of course — about how featuring such modern English surroundings alongside what they resulted from, slavery and colonialism and domination, rightly reframes them as connected, related, as opposed to being treated as separate, as is often the case. Here I was reminded of the historiography of the Second World War in Europe, how it seems the conflict being fought has been isolated from the Holocaust, when in reality, of course, they were related, one and the same (hence the widespread ‘clean Wehrmacht’ myth); the German soldiers of the Wehrmacht, pushing further east to extend the ‘living space’ for the Aryan race, were of paramount importance in this genocide, with their ‘Shoah by bullets’ in the Soviet Union exterminating around 1.5 million Jews before the systematic, industrialised killings of the ‘Shoah by gas,’ which began soon after.)
Feminist literary critic Margaret A. Doody has considered further progressive writing present in Burney’s The Wanderer. She states that ‘Burney is the first novelist seriously to express sympathy for the working women in their normal conditions of work — and to see how the system of employment, not merely individual bad employers, creates conditions of impossible monotony.’ Her novels do feature poor characters written sympathetically (Henrietta, in Cecilia, is one of my favourite side characters) but that often feels clouded when the focus is nevertheless on the wealthy.
However, any discussion of The Wanderer without mentioning the character of Elinor is, frankly, a discussion not worth reading — no, not worth existing. She is often framed as an antagonist to the main character, particularly because of the love triangle that exists between the women and the main love interest, Harleigh. (For me, he’s on the lower end of love interests in Burney’s novels, down there with Lord Orville in her first and most famous (satirical) novel Evelina (1778). I will admit, I feel quite the Burney hipster when I tell myself Evelina is my least favourite. I can’t believe I’ve just written that.) At the start of the novel, Elinor is engaged for the sole purpose of having political debates, notably with her being in support of the French Revolution, while her betrothed is not. I find her a deeply tragic character throughout the story (again, I’m avoiding plot points), and it does appear that, really, we’re not meant to see her as villainous — not that I could ever do such a thing anyway, I love her so much (and Eugenia from Camilla, but I’ll get to her). Elinor’s energetic personality and radical feminist beliefs, citing Wollstonecraft during heightened moments, are endorsed by Burney and the main character, Doody argues, because no characters in the story attempt to contradict her: Burney allows Elinor’s views to be expressed, she gives them space to be heard, because they are her own views.
However — I hate how there’s a however — the ending to Elinor’s storyline appears to be a, well literal, deus ex machina, and everything else too is wrapped up perfectly and of the sensibilities of the time — though her feminist principles may not be rejected. Regarding the main character, Doody states: ‘Burney gives us the ‘happy ending’ of course, but not until after she has made sure that we see it is just a formality, and by no means a solution,’ that we are aware now of the main character having become a commodity. Here I’m reminded — SPOILER for a side character in Camilla — of the fifteen-year-old Mrs Lissin (née Dennel) who spends the entire lengthy novel wishing to get married, to have her own place, freedom from living with her father, and when she finally does get married at the end, it’s to an unpleasant and aggressive man, and she is frightened. It’s a profoundly tragic storyline, her innocent beliefs shattered, and she is still left without control, with only submission. Professor Audrey Bilger has considered that her fate is her punishment — a sympathetic kind rather than cruel, you have the sense that Burney too feels for her — for not properly considering the seriousness of marriage, for acting rashly and thus ‘being ignorant about women’s position in society.’ This is summarised by the widow (and thus somewhat liberated) Mrs Arlbery in the novel when she comments upon the now Mrs Lissin’s naivety in assuming she would achieve liberation once away from her father and imagining her husband to be a compliant figure in her life, so she could finally live as she wished, rather than continuing to live a life in which little, if anything, is her own.
It’s these instances of constraint — I say instances, I mean the entirety of every story — where characters are inevitably forced towards certain fates that are what draw me most to her (almost thousand-page) novels. I was going to consider in this blog that a reason why Burney, both herself and her work, seems to have had less staying power in our minds than contemporaries like Jane Austen*, is because, on the whole, she was more conservative, so her work resonated less over time. But the more I consider, the less I can convince myself of this being true. But to an extent, I can see this: despite what’s discussed in this blog, perhaps ultimately there is more conservatism on her part than other female writers of the time — there is undoubtedly a significant Christian presence in her work, as there was in her life. And if this is the case, honestly, I think that makes Burney all the more important to read. (Okay, I definitely see that to an extent I have latched myself considerably onto Burney since reading her novels. I’m not advocating for her to be reconsidered as the most progressive writer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not least because she’s one of an endless array of wealthy, white authors, but that there is value in her work, often instances of uniqueness for the time, such as is discussed by Czechowski and Doody, and it can’t be dismissed that she was an important and influential early female writer.) Then, to consider the constraints imposed upon the characters not just by the society in which they live but also by their own creator, makes the reading and analysis of such stories all the more interesting.
(*As an aside, the title of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) was inspired by a line of dialogue spoken near the end of Burney’s Cecilia (1782). Of her novels, I’d recommend this one to start with, though it was the second I read. I thought it to be the fastest in pace, though it’s the longest in length, and the characters are particularly diverse and colourful — not to say they aren’t in her other novels, but there’s a certain intense charm to her second novel.)
Back in the summer, on one bright and warm Sunday afternoon in late August (a weather almost impossible to think back to now as it’s currently snowing outside as I write this…), my partner so thoughtfully surprised me by taking me to what felt like a hidden location, where we looked up to see a brown plaque, erected by the Society of Arts, on Bolton Street in London. It read:
Madame d’Arblay (Fanny Burney), Authoress, Lived Here. Born 1752. Died 1840
I felt star-struck.
I was quite surprised to see her referred to as ‘Fanny.’ It was an intimate nickname of hers amongst her family and close friends — one she would definitely not like to be identified by at a former residence of hers, and even less by some random person a couple of centuries later who defaults to it without a second thought (though is now trying not to). And ‘Authoress’ too… She took her husband’s surname, d’Arblay, when they married in 1793, with him exiled in England. Alexandre d’Arblay was a French General and was offered service by Napoleon at the turn of the nineteenth century, so they moved to Paris… right in time for the Napoleonic Wars to break out, keeping her away from her home country for ten years — nine longer than anticipated. At one point, I recall reading in her journals and letters that her husband, refusing to fight against the British, the birthplace of his wife and the nation that welcomed him in exile, offered to aid in Napoleonic France’s suppression of the Haitian Revolution… (He didn’t, in the end.) I find this interesting because I also recall from reading that Burney was an abolitionist, which reflects the analysis of Czechowski.
There’s another plaque dedicated to her too, one I also hope to see (but unlike the brown one, I know about this one!). It’s a blue plaque located in Surrey, and it reads:
In this village Fanny Burney novelist and diarist and her husband Gen. d’Arblay built their cottage ‘Camilla.’ They lived in Westhumble 1797–1801
Again, ‘Fanny’ is used. Their cottage was so-called Camilla Cottage because they built it using the money she made from the selling of the first edition and its copyright. It was during this time, in 1800, that her dear younger sister Susanna (‘Susan’) died, which ended a lifetime of correspondence between the close sisters, and who was a central motivator in her journal writing. (It was years later, in the autumn of 1818, that Burney moved to Bolton Street in London from their home in Bath after her husband had died.)
In her third novel, Camilla (1796), the first work of hers that I read, there features undoubtedly the greatest character in the entirety of Burney’s work: Eugenia, the younger sister of the titular protagonist. I will never be able to completely express my love for Eugenia, and will struggle to do so here without discussing any major plot points — so essentially, I’m saying: go and read Camilla now! (I’ve since written this essay about this beautiful character.)
The lives of these young women — Camilla, Eugenia, their older sister Lavinia, and their cousin, the vain Indiana — and their entrance into (wealthy) society is complicated and interweaving as they attempt to follow their hearts, while remembering their places. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Eugenia. To avoid major details, from the beginning, the life she will lead is different from the others; left with scars after having contracted smallpox in her youth and becoming physically disabled owing to an accident discussed at the beginning, Eugenia, around four feet tall at age fifteen and with a limp, is set to face insurmountable adversity. And does she… But she is such an incredibly strong character, and my heart is breaking even now as I think back to a particular section in the book that focuses on her realisation of how she’s seen by others in the world. And there’s a love triangle in this story too, but because it involves Eugenia, it’s so rich and alive and your heart is completely invested. And that’s not all with her character. There’s a man, a mysterious man… But I won’t say more. But it’s here where the constraint of Burney’s appears again, that even after all that’s happened, Eugenia ca — well, that would be spoiling…
I first heard of Frances Burney while reading Janice Hadlow’s A Royal Experiment, a big, yellow book about the family life of King George III and Queen Charlotte two years ago; it was the beginning of October, and I’d started Camilla by the end. (This was from deciding to rewatch Horrible Histories after many years and finally questioning what supposed ‘madness’ it was George III may have suffered from. I very much agree in the recent work that considers he may have suffered from bipolar disorder. Largely, this is how I’ve tried to justify to myself that I own such a book about the monarchy (and read another about their granddaughter, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, wanting to know more about the ‘triple obstetric tragedy’… involving Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Leopold I of Belgium, father of Leopold II…) because this serves as a high-profile example of the illness. I guess I read it in a similar way to how people watch The Crown. But to read the whole book and for the institution not to be challenged, for the slave trade to not even be mentioned, as far as I remember… the list is frankly endless, it makes you question how you were able to read it initially (simply to focus on the individual, and I do regret not reading or learning further at the time — I knew nothing more of Leopold than was covered in the book I read, and was completely ignorant of anything at all around Leopold II and his genocidal absolute rule over the Congo Free State).) Burney worked as the Second Keeper of the Robes between 1786–91, mostly, it seems, because Queen Charlotte frequently felt isolated in her position, unable to have intellectually stimulating discussions with other women. So she would hire them to work for her. It was largely monotonous employment where Burney felt isolated from her friends and family and the literary world of London, with the likes of Dr Johnson recently becoming a friend of hers. Regarding the tedium of female employment — mentioned above — Doody notes how Burney undoubtedly based her experience in court on the working scenes in The Wanderer. Further, ‘Burney employed her imagination on women’s work, and on work in general, with an intensity and disillusion not usually to be found until the social novels of the late 1830s and early 1840s.’ It seems clear she suffered from periods of depression during her time in court, writing plays during the tiny slivers of time she had, which were deeply tragic in nature.
This blog post has been all over the place. I suppose I should’ve had more of a thesis going in, but I don’t want to feel unable to simply write a few thoughts that come to mind.
While I appear now to be discussing Burney’s biography more than her works — not that either can ever be separated, of course — I thought it would be of note to consider briefly her journals and letters, which, as happens with literary figures, become works in themselves.
On her fifteenth birthday — 13 June 1767 — she lit a fire in the courtyard of her home, burning a pile of her manuscripts. (One was The History of Caroline Evelyn. This story focused on the complicated life of Caroline Evelyn, whose daughter was later to have her own story: Evelina.) The destruction of her work resulted from her internalisation of society’s disdain for female writers*, that instead they should be occupying themselves with housework, needlework, and other such patriarchal responsibilities. However, thankfully, her ‘nod to feminine literary propriety lasted only nine months,’ write Sabor and Troide. She began her diary on 27 March 1768, written to, I think beautifully, Nobody: only to Nobody could she confess all of her secrets. It is this Nobody of hers that underscores her writing; when finishing this first entry, Burney writes: ‘From this moment, then, my dear Girl — but why, permit me to ask, must a female be made Nobody? Ah! my dear, what were this world good for, were Nobody a female?’
(*It was for this reason that she published Evelina anonymously in 1778.)
She would continue writing in her diary for many years, and then her writing shifted more towards journal letters to her beloved sister Susanna. One evening, the secrecy of her diary — still in its infancy — was threatened: she had accidentally left a page of it lying on the piano, only to be discovered by her father, Dr Charles Burney, the famous music historian. To her relief, ‘it contained nothing that was objectionable,’ and her father, ‘a liberal man by the standards of the day,’ gave her unspoken permission to continue so long as she didn’t leave more pages about the house.
While considering her (once) private writings, any discussion of them would be incomplete (I’m sensing a theme…) without mentioning a particular journal letter she wrote to her older sister Esther (‘Hetty’) between March and June 1812, centring on an event on the morning of 30 September 1811. Written on the outer cover enclosing the letter are the words: ‘Breast operation Respect this & beware not to injure it!!!’
Around August 1810, Burney had begun to experience breast pains, with Alexandre considering such to be breast cancer (though we will never know for certain). Eventually, through her connections established from her royal employment, she was provided treatment by notable physicians and later had a mastectomy. Her account of it is excruciating… I’m wincing just thinking about it. But it’s so incredibly interesting too: to have such a detailed account of such a medical procedure from so long ago, and from a woman’s own perspective. I’ll include the passage below, but it’s reassuring to know she survived and lived many more years (perhaps because of the mastectomy?) — though she did outlive both her husband and her son…
CW: graphic description of surgery
I mounted, therefore, unbidden, the Bed stead — and M. Dubois placed me upon the Mattrass, and spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent, however, and I saw, through it, that the bed stead was instantly surrounded by the 7 men and my nurse. I refused to be held; but when, Bright through the cambric, I saw the glitter of polished Steel — I closed my Eyes. I would not trust to convulsive fear the sight of the terrible incision. A silence the most profound ensued, which lasted for some minutes, during which, I imagine, they took their orders by signs, and made their examination — Oh what a horrible suspension! — I did not breathe and M. Dubois tried vainly to find any pulse. This pause, at length, was broken by Dr Larry, who in a voice of seldom melancholy, said ‘Qui me tiendra ce sein? –’ [‘Yes, it’s a small thing — but –’]
[…]
My dearest Esther, — and all my dears to whom she communicates this doleful ditty, will rejoice to hear that this resolution once taken, was firmly adhered to, in defiance of a terror that surpasses all description, and the most torturing pain. Yet — when the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast — cutting through veins — arteries — flesh — nerves — I needed no injunctions not to restrain my cries. I began a scream than lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision — and I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, and the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute by sharp and forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound — but when again I felt the instrument — describing a curve — cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose and tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left — then, indeed, I thought I must have expired. I attempted no more to open my Eyes — they felt as if hermetically shut, and so firmly closed, that the Eyelids seemed indented into the Cheeks. The instrument this second time withdrawn, I concluded the operation over, — Oh no! presently the terrible cutting was renewed — and worse than ever, to separate the bottom, the foundation of this dreadful gland from the parts to which it adhered — Again all description would be baffled — yet again all was not over, — Dr Larry rested but his own hand, and — Oh Heaven! — I then felt the knife rackling against the breast bone — scraping it!
[…]
My dearest Esther, not for days, not for Weeks, but for Months I could not speak of this terrible business without nearly again going through it! I could not think of it with impunity! I was sick, I was disordered by a single question — even now, 9 months after it is over, I have a head ache from going on with the account! and this miserable account, which I began 3 Months ago, at least, I dare not revise, nor read, the recollection is still so painful.
To conclude, the evil was so profound, the case so delicate, and the precautions necessary for preventing a return so numerous, that the operation, including the treatment and the dressing, lasted 20 minutes! a time, for sufferings so acute, that was hardly supportable — However, I bore it with all the courage I could exert, and never moved, nor stopt them, nor resisted, nor remonstrated, nor spoke — except once or twice, during the dressings, to say ‘Ah Messieurs! que je vois plains! –’ [‘Ah Sirs! how I pity you! –’] for indeed I was sensible to the feeling concern with which they all saw I endured, though my speech was principally — very principally meant for Dr Larry. Except this, I uttered not a syllable, save, when so often they re-commenced, calling out ‘Avertissez moi, Messieurs! avertissez moi! –’ [Warn me, Sirs! warn me! –’] Twice, I believe, I fainted; at least, I have two total chasms in my memory of this transaction, that impede my tying together what passed. When all was done, and they lifted me up that I might be put to bed, my strength was so totally annihilated, that I was obliged to be carried, and could not even sustain my hands and arms, which hung as if I had been lifeless; while my face, as the Nurse had told me, was utterly colourless. This removal made me open my Eyes — and I then saw my good Dr Larry, pale nearly as myself, his face streaked with blood, and its expression, depicting grief, apprehension, and almost horrour.
When I was in bed, — my poor M. d’Arblay — who ought to write you himself his own history of this Morning — was called to me — and afterwards our Alex [their sixteen-year-old son]. –
I don’t know if there’s any possible way to follow on from that…
But I think it’s an appropriate place to end this blog post — though now I’m more uncertain of its purpose than I was when I set out.
Here are two authors who I’ve seemingly latched onto for various reasons, and here are a few meandering thoughts I have about the novels of theirs I’ve read. Perhaps in an attempt to justify the disarray of this blog post, I’m reminded of the words of sixteen-year-old Frances Burney, written on a Wednesday afternoon while sitting in a small building of her home that overlooks a river flowing peacefully in the July warmth: ‘I cannot express the pleasure I have in writing down my thoughts, at the very moment […] and I am much deceived in my fore sight, if I shall not have very great delight in reading this living proof of […] my thoughts […] in future.’
Bibliography
Bilger, A. (1998) Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Burney, F. (1999a) Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress. 2nd edn. Edited by: P. Sabor and M. A. Doody. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burney, F. (1999b) Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth. 3rd edn. Edited by: E. A. Bloom and L. D. Bloom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burney, F. (2001a) The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties. 2nd edn. Edited by M. A. Doody, R. L. Mack, and P. Sabor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burney, F. (2001b) Journals and Letters. Edited by: P. Sabor, L. E. Troide, S. Cooke, and V. Kortes-Papp. London: Penguin Books.
Burney, F. (2002) Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. Edited by: E. A. Bloom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Czechowski, T. (2013) ‘“Black, Patched and Pennyless”: Race and Crime in Burney’s The Wanderer,’ Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 25(4), pp.677–700. Available at: https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/ecf.25.4.677 (Accessed: 28 November 2021).
Godwin, R. (2009) ‘You Can’t Go Home Again: Does Nazism Really Transform Wolfe’s Romanticism?’ The Thomas Wolfe Review, 33(1), pp.24–31. Available at: https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA219589345&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=02765683&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ea86335b0 (Accessed: 28 November 2021).
Hadlow, J. (2014) A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Martin, G.R.R. (2021) ‘Back to the Midwest,’ Not a Blog, 16 July. Available at: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2021/07/ (Accessed: 29 November 2021).
Reeves, P. (1968) Thomas Wolfe’s Albatross: Race and Nationality in America. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Wolfe, T. (1972 [1939]) The Web and the Rock. Aylesbury: Penguin Books.
Wolfe, T. (1989 [1940]) You Can’t Go Home Again. New York: Harper Perennial.
