This dissertation explores the socio-economic dimensions of inheritance in notable mid-Victorian novels and their engagement with contemporary social debates over amending feudal inheritance laws. The dissertation argues that these novels contributed to reinforcing a reactionary cultural force that drove the compromised liberal legislation of new inheritance laws. The reform of the inheritance laws, led by Victorian liberals, focused on strengthening absolute testamentary power while displacing radical reformers’ demand for state intervention in redistributing inherited wealth into the hands of broader population. The liberals prioritized the cultivation of individual moral capacity or character-building over the improvement of economic equality. With their generic narrative power, mid-Victorian novels about inheritance dramatized the liberal reformers’ socio-economic ideas and sought to shape a subject who would internalize those ideas in his or her mind. My dissertation also illuminates how mid-Victorian liberals’ reasoning for the reform exposes a paradox in liberalism and a limit of the distinctive Victorian concept of ethical subjectivity.
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