{"product_id":"born-yesterday-stephanie-insley-hershinow-9781421429670","title":"Born Yesterday: Inexperience and the Early Realist Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe early novel was not the coming-of-age story we know today--eighteenth-century adolescent protagonists remained in a constant state of arrested development, never truly maturing.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBetween the emergence of the realist novel in the early eighteenth century and the novel's subsequent alignment with self-improvement a century later lies a significant moment when novelistic characters were unlikely to mature in any meaningful way. That adolescent protagonists poised on the cusp of adulthood resisted a headlong tumble into maturity through the workings of plot reveals a curious literary and philosophical counter-tradition in the history of the novel. Stephanie Insley Hershinow's \u003ci\u003eBorn Yesterday\u003c\/i\u003e shows how the archetype of the early realist novice reveals literary character tout court. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough new readings of canonical novels by Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen, Hershinow severs the too-easy tie between novelistic form and character formation, a conflation, she argues, of \u003ci\u003eBild\u003c\/i\u003e with \u003ci\u003eBildung\u003c\/i\u003e. A pop-culture-infused epilogue illustrates the influence of the eighteenth-century novice, as embodied by Austen's \u003ci\u003eEmma\u003c\/i\u003e, in the 1995 film \u003ci\u003eClueless\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as in dystopian YA works like \u003ci\u003eThe Hunger Games\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on bold close readings, \u003ci\u003eBorn Yesterday\u003c\/i\u003e alters the landscape of literary historical eighteenth-century studies and challenges some of novel theory's most well-worn assumptions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Stephanie Insley Hershinow\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1421429675\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781421429670\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Johns Hopkins University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/02\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.90lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 6.20w x 0.80d","brand":"Stephanie Insley Hershinow","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48088214012159,"sku":"9781421429670","price":52.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_51001b2d-5c46-4f72-8970-b43dc07e701d.jpg?v=1769103690","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/born-yesterday-stephanie-insley-hershinow-9781421429670","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}