The food plot in the nineteenth-century British novel

While much criticism has focused on the role of the marriage plot in the nineteenth-century British novel, this book revises the history and theory of the novel, uncovering the 'food plot' against which the marriage plot and modern subjectivity take shape.

With the emergence of Malthusian population theory and its unsettling links between sexuality and the food supply, the British novel became animated by the tension between the marriage plot and the food plot.

Charting the shifting relationship between these plots, from Jane Austen's polite meals to Bram Stoker's bloodthirsty vampires, this book sheds new light on some of the best-know works of nineteenth-century literature.