Robert Bage, James Wallace

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Early in Robert Bage’s fourth novel,

James Wallace

(3 vols, 1788) a good-natured but unsophisticated country squire complains about his sister’s fondness for novels, a taste he can’t comprehend. As he exclaims impatiently, “[T]hey be all stories from one end to t’other. As how Mr. Thingumbob falls in love wi’ Miss What’s her name. How they be crossed in love! How Mr. Such a one runs away with her. Then comes Thingumbob slap, and kills him. Then Father and Mother comes to; so they be married, and there’s an end on’t” (1: 202-203). With a frothy plot featuring illicit passion, a near-fatal duel, and the apparently star-crossed love of its wandering foundling hero,

James Wallace

might sound, in outline, like precisely the sort of novel disdained by the plain-spoken Squire…

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Citation: Perkins, Pam. "James Wallace". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4362, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4362 James Wallace 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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