• Speculation, Suicide, and the Silver Fork Novel
• Leigh Wetherall Dickson (bio)

Having finished reading a new novel, Lady Holland wrote to her son with her verdict: "There is nothing that makes much genius in the author: it is evidently by a man who has seen London society, tho' he talks of a person as gentlemanly. It is mixed up with bad religious stuff, and a strange discourse, which I had not the patience to read, on suicide" (qtd. in Adburgham 95; emphasis original). The novel was Thomas H. Lister's 1826 Granby, which is recognized as one of the first of the silver fork novels. The term "silver fork" was taken from William Hazlitt's now infamous review of Thomas Hook's 1824 Sayings and Doings, in which he fumes about Hook's apparent admiration of that narrow section of society that "eat their fish with silver forks" (722). That suicide should be a feature of silver fork fiction is not surprising given the perceived close association of suicide with the fashionable society that gives the genre its soubriquet. Donna T. Andrew observes that suicide, alongside dueling, adultery, and gambling, "constitut[ed] a sort of constellation of corruption" practiced by society's elite (4). The emergence of the silver fork novel in the first quarter of the nineteenth century coincided with significant changes in how suicide was viewed. On the one hand, while juridical and religious discourses and practices, representing venerable traditions of thought on suicide, continued to exercise authority over acts of self-destruction, these approaches of condemning and sanctioning suicide were increasingly pressured by changing attitudes toward the act and its perpetrators. The problem of suicide was coming to be seen as a social problem as well as a judicial, medical, religious, and philosophical one. There has been a recent rise in the re-evaluation of the significance of the silver fork novel in relation to two connected key themes: reform and the rise of the socially aspirant middle class. Suicide in the silver fork novel has not received any such attention, though Murieann O'Cinneide does note that "many silver fork novels features a flurry of murders, suicides and all-round collapses" (58). This article is the first to consider the centrality of suicide to a genre that is only now beginning to receive due scholarly attention, in part because, as Angela Esterhammer observes, the silver fork novel is a genre that makes a "strong claim to be an accurate observer of societal behaviour" [End Page 103] (Esterhammer). In Granby Lister makes suicide the key moment in the plot, and I will argue that the reason Lady Holland found the discourse upon the subject so strange is that it is represented without judgement, condemnation, or argument. As Matthew Whiting Rosa notes, Granby "firmly established" the fashionable novel in that "moral lessons . . . virtually disappeared [as] the desire for accuracy in the portrayals of rank and setting grew" (55). The lack of judgement upon the contentious subject of suicide within a genre obsessed with accurately representing society signals this shift toward considering the act as a social problem. However, this shift in attitude and the silver fork novel both emerge from conditions specific to the 1820s, the result of which Esterhammer identifies as being a self-conscious culture of speculation.

Edward Copeland argues that silver fork novels were "attempts to lever power, to bring about the major changes in attitude necessary to make an effective union of the middle classes and the traditional ruling classes" (5). Cheryl A. Wilson posits that the novels "positioned themselves as a type of conduct book, offering a guidance for socially-aspirant members of the middle class" (1). Wilson's reading of the genre chimes with that of Copeland's in that the middle classes would be entering a brave new and interconnected world of politics and fashion, and both attribute a certainty of purpose to the silver fork novelist. On the surface Granby does indeed appear to promote the "Whig principles of political change" (Copeland 71). Lister's recent editor, Claire Bainbridge, attributes to Granby a similar sense of purpose in relation to the reform agenda of Copeland. In her introduction to the...

• 投机，自杀和银叉小说
• 利·韦瑟罗尔·迪克森（生物）

读完一部新小说之后，荷兰夫人以判决向她的儿子写信：“作者中没有什么能使他变得天才的：显然，这是一个看过伦敦社会的人，他说的一个人很绅士。 “它充满了不良的宗教内容和奇怪的话语，而我没有耐心地阅读过有关自杀的话”（qtd。in Adburgham 95；强调原文）。小说是托马斯·H·李斯特（Thomas H. Lister）的1826年格兰比（Granby），被认为是最早的银叉小说之一。“银叉”一词取自威廉·哈兹利特（William Hazlitt）对托马斯·胡克（Thomas Hook）的《 1824年俗语与作为》的臭名昭著的评论。，他对胡克对“用银叉吃鱼”的狭窄社会的表态表示敬佩（722）。鉴于自杀与时尚社会之间的紧密联系使自杀成为白手起家，所以自杀应该成为银叉小说的一个特征就不足为奇了。唐娜·T·安德鲁（Donna T. Andrew）观察到，自杀，决斗，通奸和赌博与社会精英共同实践“构成一种腐败现象”（4）。银叉小说在19世纪第一季度的出现与自杀方式的重大变化相吻合。一方面，虽然代表自杀的思想传统的法律和宗教话语与实践，继续对自我毁灭行为行使权威，因此，对行为及其肇事者的态度不断变化，这些谴责和制裁自杀的方法越来越受到压力。自杀问题已被视为社会问题，也是司法，医学，宗教和哲学问题。最近，人们对银叉小说的重要性进行了重新评估，涉及两个相关的主题：改革和有社会抱负的中产阶级的崛起。银叉子小说中的自杀并没有受到任何关注，尽管穆里安·奥辛尼德确实指出“许多银叉子小说都带有一连串的谋杀，自杀和全面崩溃”（58）。［第103页结束］（Esterhammer）。在《格兰比·李斯特（Granby Lister）》中，自杀是情节中的关键时刻，我将辩称，霍兰德夫人发现有关该主题的论述如此奇怪的原因是，它没有经过判断，定罪或争论就可以表示出来。正如马修·惠廷·罗莎（Matthew Whiting Rosa）所说，格兰比（Granby）“牢固地建立了”这本时兴的小说，因为“道德上的教训……几乎消失了，因为人们对等级和环境的刻画要求越来越高”（55）。缺乏对准确描述社会的迷恋中有争议的自杀主题的判断，标志着这种转变已朝着将行为视为社会问题的方向发展。但是，这种态度的转变和银叉小说都是从1820年代特有的情况出现的，其结果被Esterhammer识别为一种自觉的投机文化。

爱德华·科普兰德（Edward Copeland）认为，银叉小说“试图利用权力，带来必要的态度上的重大变化，以使中产阶级与传统统治阶级有效地结合起来”（5）。谢丽尔·威尔逊（Cheryl A. Wilson）认为，小说“将自己定位为一种行为书籍，为中产阶级中有社会志向的成员提供了指导”（1）。威尔逊与科普兰的小说一样，中产阶级将进入一个崭新的，相互联系的政治和时尚世界，两者都将目标明确地归功于银叉小说家。从表面上看，格兰比确实确实在促进“政治变革的辉格原则”（Copeland 71）。李斯特（Lister）的最新编辑克莱尔·班布里奇（Claire Bainbridge）在谷轮公司的改革议程中也有类似的目的感。在她对...的介绍中