This is a book about a longstanding network of writers and writings that celebrate the aesthetic, socio-political, scientific, ecological, geographical, and historical value of trees and tree spaces in the landscape; and it is a study of the effect of this tree-writing upon the novel form in the long nineteenth century.
Autorentext
Anna Burton is an early career researcher and teaching fellow at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests include long nineteenth-century literature, natural history, nature writing, and the afterlives of the 'Picturesque'.
Inhalt
Introduction
Chapter One
A Silvicultural Tradition
Single Trees and Remarkable Specimens
From Clumps to Forests: Trees in Combination
Gilpin and the New Forest
A Changing Woodscape: Preservation and Planting into the Nineteenth Century
Chapter Two
Arboreal Boundaries and Silvicultural 'Improvement' in the Literary Landscapes of Jane Austen
Silvicultural Dynamism: Arboreal Conversations and Characterisations
Trees, Improvement, and Maintaining Arboreal Boundaries
Chapter Three
The Presence and Absence of Trees in the Writings of Elizabeth Gaskell
The Topographies of Trees in Libbie Marsh's Three Eras and Ruth
'delicious air' and the Green Belt in North and South
Chapter Four
Reading Ancient Trees and Arboreal Strata in The Woodlanders
Arboreal Accumulation and the 'Billy Wilkins' Tree
Reading Stratigraphical Woodscapes: The Intersection of Aesthetics and Geology
Chapter Five
'Such is the Vale of Blackmoor': Navigating Trees, Memory, and Prospect in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Topographical Perambulation and the Arboreal Margin
Accumulating Prospects and Retrospective Reflection, Tess as Active Spectator
Conclusion