In/Visible Subjects: Literary Character and Narratives of Invisibility Since the Eighteenth Century

In/Visible Subjects explores the cultural fascination with invisible characters in literature. While the concept of social invisibility is common in contemporary political discourse, there exists no comprehensive analysis of the history of the cultural metaphor of invisibility. This book addresses this gap by tracing the literary evolution of invisibility in narratives from the eighteenth century to the present. The monograph examines literal and metaphorical invisibility in terms of both content and form, offering exemplary readings of literary texts by: eighteenth-century women novelists Eliza Haywood and Susanna Rowson; Romantic poets Anna Letitia Barbauld and John Keats; nineteenth-century writers of fantasy and science fiction, including James Forbes Dalton, Fitz-James O’Brien, and H.G. Wells; early twentieth-century authors such as G.K. Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Ellison; and contemporary writers China Miéville and Jennifer Egan. In/Visible Subjects aims to establish a new literary foundation for the emerging field of invisibility studies. It is of interest to scholars in literary and cultural studies working on narrative, literary character, subjectivity, and identity.