The Afterlife of Character, 1726-1825

by David A. Brewer

The Afterlife of Character, 1726-1825 reconstructs how eighteenth-century British readers invented further adventures for beloved characters, including Gulliver, Falstaff, Pamela, and Tristram Shandy. Far from being close-ended and self-contained, the novels and plays in which these characters first appeared were treated by many as merely a starting point, a collective reference perpetually inviting augmentation through an astonishing wealth of unauthorized sequels. Characters became an inexhaustible form of common property, despite their patent authorship. Readers endowed them with value, knowing all the while that others were doing the same and so were collectively forging a new mode of virtual community.

By tracing these practices, David A. Brewer shows how the literary canon emerged as much "from below" as out of any of the institutions that have been credited with their invention. Indeed, he reveals the astonishing degree to which authors had to cajole readers into granting them authority over their own creations, authority that seems self-evident to a modern audience.

In its innovative methodology and its unprecedented attention to the productive interplay between the audience, the book as a material artifact, and the text as an immaterial entity, The Afterlife of Character, 1726-1825 offers a compelling new approach to eighteenth-century studies, the history of the book, and the very idea of character itself.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 30, 2005

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The further away I get from reading this book, the more I appreciate Brewer's contribution. As my instructor for Introduction to Graduate Study and subsequent teacher, I think he's had a huge impact on my graduate career in ways I am just beginning to appreciate more fully. I didn't realize how closely our interests merged until the past couple years. Even though Brewer takes a different tack toward the material than I would (copyright law, interest in authorship, material approaches), we share a lot of ground. Brewer notes that the difference between 18c responses to character and later responses is the consolidation of authorial 'ownership' of character, which he implies shames or discourages characterological appropriations. I hope to trace later readerly appropriations of character and I'm discovering that, yes, Brewer is right--these readers/writers were viewed as larcenous for appropriating character. But they did it anyway. I think the persistence of character migration, appropriation, borrowing etc. points to the strength of this type of reader response. It doesn't matter if the fanfiction community is consistently shamed or denigrated. People love living with characters.

[Elizabeth]

on my to-read list because:

some useful discussions of the issue may be found in David Brewer's The Afterlife of Character and Elizabeth Judge's article "Kidnapped and Counterfeit Characters: Eighteenth Century Fan Fiction, Copyright Law, and the Custody of Fictional Characters," in Reginald McGinnis, ed., Originality and Intellectual Property in the French and English Enlightenment.
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