Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain

236 Pages·2008·1.16 MB·English

by  Kristina Straub

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∫ 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Straub, Kristina, 1951–
Domestic affairs : intimacy, eroticism, and violence between servants and
masters in eighteenth-century Britain / Kristina Straub.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9049-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-9049-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. English literature—18th century—History and criticism. 2. Domestics in
literature. 3. Master and servant in literature. 4. Social classes in literature.
5. Group identity in literature. 6. Gender identity in literature.
7. Domestics—Great Britain—Social conditions—18th century. 8. Family—
Economic aspects—Great Britain—History—18th century. I. Title.
PR448.D66S77 2008
820.9%3552—dc22 2008014660
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and covers are printed on paper with recycled content.
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Acknowledgments vii
1 The ‘‘Servant Problem’’ and the Family 1
2 ‘‘In the Posture of Children’’:
Servants, Family Pedagogy, and Sexuality 19
3 Interpreting the Woman Servant:
Pamela and Elizabeth Canning, 1740 to 1760 47
4 Dangerous Intimacies: Roxana, Amy, and the
Crimes of Elizabeth Brownrigg, 1724 to 1767 83
5 Performing the Manservant, 1730 to 1760 110
6 Men Servants’ Sexuality in the Novel, 1740 to 1794 141
Conclusion: Notes of a Footman on the ‘‘Servant Problem,’’ 1790 178
Notes 191
Index 215
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............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................A................c............k..............n..............o..............w..................l......e..............d..............g............m......................e..............n..............t........s..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
I owe thanks to many colleagues who read parts of this book and improved it with
their suggestions and comments. Jon Klancher gave me helpful and generous
feedback on an early version combining chapters 1 and 2, as did Michael Witmore
on what became chapter 2. Laura Rosenthal and Mita Choudhury gave me strong
editorial advice on my reading of the Elizabeth Brownrigg materials, and Jocelyn
Harris and Lisa Zunshine improved portions of the chapter on Pamela. Daniel
Quinn gave me wonderful writing advice on the Footman’s Gallery portions of
chapter 5. George Haggerty also helped me bring some order to that chapter,
which never would have made it into their hands if Michael Chemers had not
encouraged me. Most importantly, I cannot thank Jill Campbell enough for her
heroic reading of the entire manuscript for the Johns Hopkins University Press;
Jill, your advice has made this book as good as I could make it.
I am always in the debt of my students at Carnegie Mellon University. They
keep me asking the hardest questions and searching for the strongest answers. I
particularly thank the members of my Feminist Cultural Studies seminar, upon
whom I inflicted piles of nearly illegible photocopies of the Canning materials.
Rebecca May, especially, was a trooper in reading and making sense of the contra-
dictory documents in this case. I owe a special debt to Jad Smith, who can talk
about Pamela and garden with me at the same time. Thanks also to my research
assistant, Julianne Mentzer, for her help with the index.
My colleagues among the faculty and administration at Carnegie Mellon Uni-
versity have given me an invigorating and supportive work environment for the
past twenty years. Ours is a community that respects expertise and has a healthy
intolerance for facile claims to knowledge. David Kaufer, the head of the English
Department, and John Lehoczky, dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, have
mentored and supported me in this honest and demanding institution.
I wish to acknowledge Bucknell University Press, Routledge University Press,
the Modern Language Association, and Cambridge University Press for publish-
viii acknowledgments
ing portions of this book in different forms and for different educational and
scholarly purposes.
The editors and staff at the Johns Hopkins University Press have been patient,
professional, and helpful. I thank Michael Lonegro for his tolerance during some
of my worst senior moments and Kathleen Capels for the intelligence and bravery
with which she took on the herculean task of cleaning up my prose.
The Folger Shakespeare Library let me teach a seminar on eighteenth-century
servants and join their wonderful community for all too short a time. I owe much
to the graciousness and insightfulness of the students in that seminar, particularly
the historians, who helped me achieve a more critical and nuanced sense of
evidence and data.
Another community that has given me vital support throughout the course of
completing this project is the wonderful band of theater scholars assembled by
Joseph Roach and Maggie Powell in the ‘‘Anti-Theatricality’’ conference at Yale
and its subsequent reunion at the Lewis Day Walpole Library, in particular Lisa
Freeman, whose ideas about theater and so much else have been important to my
thinking about this book over the years.
I could not have continued in eighteenth-century studies without the many
years of friendship and intellectual support that I have gained from the members
of the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies. Talking, laughing, listen-
ing, thinking, and eating with you over the last twenty-four years has given me a
community that continually tells me that our work is worth doing. There are too
many of you to thank individually—and you know who you are—but I would be
remiss not to single out Sue Lanser, who encouraged me to continue on with this
project when I had begun to doubt that it would ever be publishable.
My family has grown and changed since I began working on this book. My
little daughters Bailey and Evie Clark are now taller than I am, and I have found a
loving, intellectually challenging, and endlessly entertaining spouse in Carol
Goldburg. The three of you are what keep me going in everything that I do,
including the ‘‘inconvenience’’ of writing this book. Along with Carol’s compan-
ionship, I have gained the love and support of the rather extensive Goldburg/Levy
clan; I cannot believe my good luck at having been adopted by you all, especially
my mother-outlaw, Barbara Goldburg. Particular thanks to my brother-outlaw,
Steve Summerday, who interrupted a perfectly lovely vacation in the Colorado
mountains to ask the question that made me pull my scattered thoughts together:
‘‘Kristina, what is your book about?’’
I would finally like to acknowledge some long-time, constant companions. My
sister Suzy Currey was my fellow traveler in aging while I was writing this book, as
acknowledgments ix
she has been and, I hope, will be in every other development of my life. Nat
Anderson has been and will always be on the other end of a phone line when I
need her. My mother, Mimi Straub, gave me enough of her toughness and
independence to finish projects like this one. And although he is no longer
around to read this, I thank my father, Bud Straub, for his early lessons in the
playful ways of words.