This book offers a much-needed study of the Victorian novel's role in representing and shaping the service sector's emergence. Arguing that prior accounts of the novel's relation to the rise of finance have missed the emergence of a wider service sector, it traces the effects of service work's many forms and class positions in the Victorian novel.

Autorentext

Joshua Gooch is an Assistant Professor at D'Youville College in Buffalo, New York. His research focuses on intersections of work, power, and aesthetics in literature and film, particularly in relation to cultures with financialized economies, and includes essays on Samuel Butler, Joseph Conrad, Wes Anderson, and war films.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. The Social Work of Unproductive Labor
2. Silas Marner: Narration as Work-Discipline
3. Our Mutual Friend: Service Work as Subject-Work
4. The Moonstone: Service Work as Narrative Work
5. The Way We Live Now: Service Work and Violence
   Conclusion, Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Work-Discipline
   Bibliography
   Index