Michael McKeon is Board of Governors Professor of Literature at Rutgers University, the author of Politics and Poetry in Restoration England and The Origins of the English Novel, and the editor of Theory of the Novel.

The strength of the book lies in the wealth of historical, literary, and pictorial examples that evoke the texture of domesticity, from bedchambers to bigamy. New Yorker 2006 Its central argument is wonderfully simple... McKeon will set new agendas in the understanding of the early modern to modern eras. -- Brean S. Hammond Times Literary Supplement 2006 Those in the fields of 17th- and 18th-century cultural studies will find this book fascinating. Choice 2006 The scholarship is breathtaking and the intellectual analysis rigorous. -- Cynthia Wall Studies in English Literature 2006 McKeon's scholarship is commanding, his erudition staggering, his systematic rigour and intellectual control steady and sure. -- John Richetti Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2007 A gift to all teachers and scholars of the British novel. -- Cheri L. Larsen Hoeckley Christianity and Literature 2007 I have assigned this book to graduate students... Accounting for most of what has gone on in the last thirty years of scholarship in its dynamic synthesis, The Secret History of Domesticity lays the groundwork for new inquiry into eighteenth-century life. As a reader, as a scholar, and as a teacher, I am grateful for it. -- Erin Mackie Eighteenth-Century Life 2009

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Division of KnowledgeThe Public and the PrivateDomesticityForm and Spatial RepresentabilityQuestions of MethodPart I: The Age of Separations1. The Devolution of AbsolutismState and Civil SocietyFrom Tacit to ExplicitPolis and OikosThe State and the FamilyAbsolute Private PropertyInterest and the Public InterestCivic Humanism or Capitalist Ideology?From the Marketplace to the MarketThe Protestant SeparationConscientious Privacy and the Closet of DevotionWhat Is the Public Sphere?2. Publishing the PrivateThe Plasticity of PrintScribal PublicationPrint, Property, and the Public InterestPrint Legislation and CopyrightKnowledge and SecrecyPublic OpinionWhat Was the Public Sphere?Publicness through VirtualityPublication and PersonalityAnonymity and ResponsibilityLibel versus SatireCharacters, Authors, ReadersParticulars and GeneralsActual and Concrete Particularity3. From State as Family to Family as StateState as FamilyFamily as StateComing TogetherBeing TogetherPutting AsunderTory Feminism and the Devolution of AbsolutismPrivacy and Pastoral4. Outside and Inside WorkThe Domestic Economy and Cottage IndustryThe Economic Basis of Separate SpheresHousewife as GovernorThe Whore's LaborThe Whores Rhetorick5. Subdividing Inside SpacesSeparating Out "Science"The Royal HouseholdCabinet and ClosetSecrets and the SecretaryNoble and Gentle HouseholdsThe Curtain LectureHouseholds of the Middling SortWhere the Poor Should Live6. Sex and Book SexSexAristotle's Master-pieceOnaniaBook SexProtopornography: Sex and ReligionProtopornography: Sex and PoliticsThe Law of Obscene LibelPart II: Domestication as Form7. Motives for DomesticationThe Productivity of the Division of KnowledgeDomestication as HermeneuticsDomestication as PedagogyDisembedding Epistemology from Social StatusScientific DisinterestednessCivic DisinterestednessAesthetic Disinterestedness8. Mixed GenresTragicomedyRomanceMock EpicPastoralChrist in the House of Martha and Mary9. Figures of DomesticationNarrative ConcentrationNarrative ConcretizationPart III: Secret Histories10. The Narration of Public CrisisWhat Is a Secret History?Sidney and BarclayOpening the King's CabinetOpening the Queen's ClosetScudéryWomen and RomanceThe King Out of PowerThe King in PowerThe Secret of the Black BoxThe Secret of The Holy War11. Behn's Love-LettersLove versus War?Love versus FriendshipFathers versus ChildrenEffeminacy and the Public WifeGender without SexFrom Epistolary to Third PersonFrom Female Duplicity to Female InteriorityLove-Letters and Pornography12. Toward the Narration of Private LifeThe Secret of the Warming PanThe Private Lives of William, Mary, and AnneThe Privatization of the Secret HistoryThe Strange Case of Beau Wilson13. Secret History as AutobiographyPreface on CongreveManley's New AtalantisManley's RivellaPostscript on Pope14. Secret History as NovelDefoe and SwiftJane Barker and Mary HearneHaywood's Secret HistoriesRichardson's Pamela15. Variations on the Domestic NovelFanny HillTristram ShandyHumphry ClinkerPride and PrejudiceNotesIndex

Michael McKeon is Board of Governors Professor of Literature at Rutgers University, the author of Politics and Poetry in Restoration England and The Origins of the English Novel, and the editor of Theory of the Novel.

The strength of the book lies in the wealth of historical, literary, and pictorial examples that evoke the texture of domesticity, from bedchambers to bigamy. New Yorker 2006 Its central argument is wonderfully simple... McKeon will set new agendas in the understanding of the early modern to modern eras. -- Brean S. Hammond Times Literary Supplement 2006 Those in the fields of 17th- and 18th-century cultural studies will find this book fascinating. Choice 2006 The scholarship is breathtaking and the intellectual analysis rigorous. -- Cynthia Wall Studies in English Literature 2006 McKeon's scholarship is commanding, his erudition staggering, his systematic rigour and intellectual control steady and sure. -- John Richetti Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2007 A gift to all teachers and scholars of the British novel. -- Cheri L. Larsen Hoeckley Christianity and Literature 2007 I have assigned this book to graduate students... Accounting for most of what has gone on in the last thirty years of scholarship in its dynamic synthesis, The Secret History of Domesticity lays the groundwork for new inquiry into eighteenth-century life. As a reader, as a scholar, and as a teacher, I am grateful for it. -- Erin Mackie Eighteenth-Century Life 2009

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Division of KnowledgeThe Public and the PrivateDomesticityForm and Spatial RepresentabilityQuestions of MethodPart I: The Age of Separations1. The Devolution of AbsolutismState and Civil SocietyFrom Tacit to ExplicitPolis and OikosThe State and the FamilyAbsolute Private PropertyInterest and the Public InterestCivic Humanism or Capitalist Ideology?From the Marketplace to the MarketThe Protestant SeparationConscientious Privacy and the Closet of DevotionWhat Is the Public Sphere?2. Publishing the PrivateThe Plasticity of PrintScribal PublicationPrint, Property, and the Public InterestPrint Legislation and CopyrightKnowledge and SecrecyPublic OpinionWhat Was the Public Sphere?Publicness through VirtualityPublication and PersonalityAnonymity and ResponsibilityLibel versus SatireCharacters, Authors, ReadersParticulars and GeneralsActual and Concrete Particularity3. From State as Family to Family as StateState as FamilyFamily as StateComing TogetherBeing TogetherPutting AsunderTory Feminism and the Devolution of AbsolutismPrivacy and Pastoral4. Outside and Inside WorkThe Domestic Economy and Cottage IndustryThe Economic Basis of Separate SpheresHousewife as GovernorThe Whore's LaborThe Whores Rhetorick5. Subdividing Inside SpacesSeparating Out "Science"The Royal HouseholdCabinet and ClosetSecrets and the SecretaryNoble and Gentle HouseholdsThe Curtain LectureHouseholds of the Middling SortWhere the Poor Should Live6. Sex and Book SexSexAristotle's Master-pieceOnaniaBook SexProtopornography: Sex and ReligionProtopornography: Sex and PoliticsThe Law of Obscene LibelPart II: Domestication as Form7. Motives for DomesticationThe Productivity of the Division of KnowledgeDomestication as HermeneuticsDomestication as PedagogyDisembedding Epistemology from Social StatusScientific DisinterestednessCivic DisinterestednessAesthetic Disinterestedness8. Mixed GenresTragicomedyRomanceMock EpicPastoralChrist in the House of Martha and Mary9. Figures of DomesticationNarrative ConcentrationNarrative ConcretizationPart III: Secret Histories10. The Narration of Public CrisisWhat Is a Secret History?Sidney and BarclayOpening the King's CabinetOpening the Queen's ClosetScudéryWomen and RomanceThe King Out of PowerThe King in PowerThe Secret of the Black BoxThe Secret of The Holy War11. Behn's Love-LettersLove versus War?Love versus FriendshipFathers versus ChildrenEffeminacy and the Public WifeGender without SexFrom Epistolary to Third PersonFrom Female Duplicity to Female InteriorityLove-Letters and Pornography12. Toward the Narration of Private LifeThe Secret of the Warming PanThe Private Lives of William, Mary, and AnneThe Privatization of the Secret HistoryThe Strange Case of Beau Wilson13. Secret History as AutobiographyPreface on CongreveManley's New AtalantisManley's RivellaPostscript on Pope14. Secret History as NovelDefoe and SwiftJane Barker and Mary HearneHaywood's Secret HistoriesRichardson's Pamela15. Variations on the Domestic NovelFanny HillTristram ShandyHumphry ClinkerPride and PrejudiceNotesIndex

Michael McKeon is Board of Governors Professor of Literature at Rutgers University, the author of Politics and Poetry in Restoration England and The Origins of the English Novel, and the editor of Theory of the Novel.

The strength of the book lies in the wealth of historical, literary, and pictorial examples that evoke the texture of domesticity, from bedchambers to bigamy. New Yorker 2006 Its central argument is wonderfully simple... McKeon will set new agendas in the understanding of the early modern to modern eras. -- Brean S. Hammond Times Literary Supplement 2006 Those in the fields of 17th- and 18th-century cultural studies will find this book fascinating. Choice 2006 The scholarship is breathtaking and the intellectual analysis rigorous. -- Cynthia Wall Studies in English Literature 2006 McKeon's scholarship is commanding, his erudition staggering, his systematic rigour and intellectual control steady and sure. -- John Richetti Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2007 A gift to all teachers and scholars of the British novel. -- Cheri L. Larsen Hoeckley Christianity and Literature 2007 I have assigned this book to graduate students... Accounting for most of what has gone on in the last thirty years of scholarship in its dynamic synthesis, The Secret History of Domesticity lays the groundwork for new inquiry into eighteenth-century life. As a reader, as a scholar, and as a teacher, I am grateful for it. -- Erin Mackie Eighteenth-Century Life 2009

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Division of KnowledgeThe Public and the PrivateDomesticityForm and Spatial RepresentabilityQuestions of MethodPart I: The Age of Separations1. The Devolution of AbsolutismState and Civil SocietyFrom Tacit to ExplicitPolis and OikosThe State and the FamilyAbsolute Private PropertyInterest and the Public InterestCivic Humanism or Capitalist Ideology?From the Marketplace to the MarketThe Protestant SeparationConscientious Privacy and the Closet of DevotionWhat Is the Public Sphere?2. Publishing the PrivateThe Plasticity of PrintScribal PublicationPrint, Property, and the Public InterestPrint Legislation and CopyrightKnowledge and SecrecyPublic OpinionWhat Was the Public Sphere?Publicness through VirtualityPublication and PersonalityAnonymity and ResponsibilityLibel versus SatireCharacters, Authors, ReadersParticulars and GeneralsActual and Concrete Particularity3. From State as Family to Family as StateState as FamilyFamily as StateComing TogetherBeing TogetherPutting AsunderTory Feminism and the Devolution of AbsolutismPrivacy and Pastoral4. Outside and Inside WorkThe Domestic Economy and Cottage IndustryThe Economic Basis of Separate SpheresHousewife as GovernorThe Whore's LaborThe Whores Rhetorick5. Subdividing Inside SpacesSeparating Out "Science"The Royal HouseholdCabinet and ClosetSecrets and the SecretaryNoble and Gentle HouseholdsThe Curtain LectureHouseholds of the Middling SortWhere the Poor Should Live6. Sex and Book SexSexAristotle's Master-pieceOnaniaBook SexProtopornography: Sex and ReligionProtopornography: Sex and PoliticsThe Law of Obscene LibelPart II: Domestication as Form7. Motives for DomesticationThe Productivity of the Division of KnowledgeDomestication as HermeneuticsDomestication as PedagogyDisembedding Epistemology from Social StatusScientific DisinterestednessCivic DisinterestednessAesthetic Disinterestedness8. Mixed GenresTragicomedyRomanceMock EpicPastoralChrist in the House of Martha and Mary9. Figures of DomesticationNarrative ConcentrationNarrative ConcretizationPart III: Secret Histories10. The Narration of Public CrisisWhat Is a Secret History?Sidney and BarclayOpening the King's CabinetOpening the Queen's ClosetScudéryWomen and RomanceThe King Out of PowerThe King in PowerThe Secret of the Black BoxThe Secret of The Holy War11. Behn's Love-LettersLove versus War?Love versus FriendshipFathers versus ChildrenEffeminacy and the Public WifeGender without SexFrom Epistolary to Third PersonFrom Female Duplicity to Female InteriorityLove-Letters and Pornography12. Toward the Narration of Private LifeThe Secret of the Warming PanThe Private Lives of William, Mary, and AnneThe Privatization of the Secret HistoryThe Strange Case of Beau Wilson13. Secret History as AutobiographyPreface on CongreveManley's New AtalantisManley's RivellaPostscript on Pope14. Secret History as NovelDefoe and SwiftJane Barker and Mary HearneHaywood's Secret HistoriesRichardson's Pamela15. Variations on the Domestic NovelFanny HillTristram ShandyHumphry ClinkerPride and PrejudiceNotesIndex