British law underwent significant changes in the eighteenth century as jurists and legislators adapted doctrines to fit the needs of an increasingly commercial, industrial, and imperial society. This volume reveals how legal developments of the period shaped and were shaped by imaginative writing. Reading canonical and lesser-known texts from the Restoration to the Romantic era, the chapters explore literary engagements with libel law, plague law, marriage law, naturalization law, the poor laws, the law of slavery and abolition, and the practice of common-law decision-making. The volume also considers the language and form of legal treatises and judicial decisions, as well as recent appropriations of the period's literature and legal norms by the Christian right. Through these varied case studies, the volume deepens our knowledge of law and literature's mutual entanglements in the long eighteenth century while shedding light on legal and ethical questions that remain of concern to this day.

‘A fascinating collection of essays on the relation of law, history, and literature during the ‘long' eighteenth-century, taking the reader from the days of Defoe to the dawning of the Victorians. A welcome contribution to the field of literary jurisprudence.'

Ian Ward - Professor of Law, Newcastle University

‘This impressive and authoritative collection of essays pushes beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of law and literature. These essays establish the cultural significance of law and literature's mutual entanglements in the long eighteenth century, and their continuing relevance to contemporary legal, political, and cultural debates. Provocative and timely.'

Susan Sage Heinzelman - Associate Professor Emerita of English and Gender Studies