Courting Disaster by Zoe McGee

 Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel

What do #MeToo and Jane Austen have in common? More than you might think. Ever since the novel was invented, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. Dr Zoë McGee reveals how Jane Austen, Frances Burney and their now-overlooked contemporaries used their stories to try to change society’s mind about rape culture – and to reassure survivors they were not alone.

Courting Disaster takes a timely deep-dive into a series of classic novels, comparing them with both historic court records and current events to show that our arguments about consent are not a new phenomenon. With the wit and wryness of a courtship novel, McGee reads between the lines to unveil a quiet feminist movement that still resonates today. Because every novel about marriage is also a novel about consent.

In an era that’s clamouring for a return to the values of the past, Courting Disaster asks what that would really mean, and whether anyone actually liked it back then anyway… -- .

Format:Hardback 336 pages, 7 black & white illustrations
Publisher:Manchester University Press
Imprint:Manchester University Press
ISBN:9781526188854
Published:4 Nov 2025
Classifications:England, c 1700 to c 1800, c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 , Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Feminism & feminist theory
Weight:442g
Dimensions:222 x 143 x 32 (mm)