Sisters and the English Household

'Sisters and the English Household' revalues unmarried adult sisters in nineteenth-century English literature as positive figures of legal and economic autonomy representing productive labour in the domestic space. As a crucial site of contested values, the adult unmarried sister carries the discursive weight of sustained public debates about ideals of domesticity in nineteenth-century England.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Alternative Domesticities: Revaluing the Sibling in the House; 2. "Out into the Orchard": The Departure of the Sibling in the House; 3. The Problem of the Sister in the House; 4. George Eliot's Natural History of the English Family; Notes ; Works Cited; Index.