This groundbreaking work examines the emergent and fluctuating relationship between the public and private social spheres of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By assessing novels such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Jane Austen's Emma through the lens of the social theories of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, Patricia McKee presents a fresh and highly original contribution to literary studies.

McKee analyzes portrayals of a society in which abstract idealism belonged to knowledgeable, productive men and the realm of ignorance was left to emotional consuming women and the uneducated. Throughout, McKee highlights the unexpected configurations of the emergence of the public and private spheres and the effect of knowledge distributions across class and gender lines.