Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Chapter Five
The Inheritance Novel
The case is strong for making a niche in eighteenth-
century studies for inheritance novels. Many early
novels deal with inheritance problems and strict
settlement practice, and use the language of inheritance
practices. Eighteenth-century upper class obsessions
with strict settlement and inheritance practice allowed
the language to become commonplace and powerful, useful
in both private and public conversations and
transactions. Englishmen in the eighteenth century, even
before the emergence of the novel, were aware that one
vital social problem for them was the inter-penetration
of the middle class and the surviving aristocracy (Sale
"From Pamela to Clarissa" 41) .
The power of inheritance practice manifested itself
in various ways, often taking the form of an estate
through which the wealth and power of a family could be
judged by anyone who saw it. Money and other forms of