The Novel and The Police [Paperback]

D. A. Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 1989

Through a series of readings in the work of the decisive triumvirate of Victorian fiction, Dickens, Trollope and Wilkie Collins, Miller investigates the novel as an oblique form of social control.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"With the appearance of D.A. Miller's remarkable book, the Victorian novel has its most dazzling critic in years. . . . Miller's subject is not so much the police in fiction as fiction and policing, narrative as a conservative function of the polis. Tracking diverse strategies of surveillance and incarceration into the confines of the fictional institution itself, Miller investigates Victorian novels as the often unconscious agent of a disciplinary culture. He thus reads fiction reading us, keeping a public in its private place. His mastery of an intricate, layered, and sinuous argument is stunning, the writing no less than superb. For all the book's overarching debt to Foucault, D.A. Miller 'do the police' in a voice all his own."--Garrett Stewart, author of Death Sentences: Styles of Dying in British Fiction

From the Back Cover

"With the appearance of D.A. Miller's remarkable book, the Victorian novel has its most dazzling critic in years. . . . Miller's subject is not so much the police in fiction as fiction and policing, narrative as a conservative function of the polis. Tracking diverse strategies of surveillance and incarceration into the confines of the fictional institution itself, Miller investigates Victorian novels as the often unconscious agent of a disciplinary culture. He thus reads fiction reading us, keeping a public in its private place. His mastery of an intricate, layered, and sinuous argument is stunning, the writing no less than superb. For all the book's overarching debt to Foucault, D.A. Miller 'do the police' in a voice all his own." (Garrett Stewart, author of Death Sentences: Styles of Dying in British Fiction)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (July 14, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520067460
• ISBN-13: 978-0520067462
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #456,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful study of the Victorian novel, September 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Novel and The Police (Paperback)

Miller's famous 1989 study of the Victorian novel through the lens of Foucauldian ideas about surveillance and sexuality is one of the most brilliant studies in the field--its readings of Collins, Trollope, and Dickens have become definitive. The work suffers only from its author's vanity: the references to his personal life seem cutesy and don't add much to the study (they detract from it). Otherwise this is the best study of the Victorian novel in decades.