Doubleplot I: The Tenants of Malory

Abstract

This novel is intimately, but anonymously narrated. The framing is intratextual, not paratextual: it comes from its structure and teasing tone, and the seemingly casual introduction of a number of highly artificial motifs, including the codes of landscape and setting.¹ The novel is organised on Shakespearian lines: two separate but interlacing plots, both turning around the idea of ‘possession’. The ‘romance’ plot, which opens the book, is the story of the winning of Margaret Fanshawe by Cleve Verney. Cleve is the local aristocracy’s, the feudal Verneys’, young bright hope. He is handsome, and knows how to manipulate his status. But he is also dependent on his unpleasant uncle, Kiffyn, who is the next in line for the baronetcy of the Verney family, an inheritance which is, however, at the opening of the novel, still under dispute. Financially, Cleve’s prospects are not directly good - only good by association with his uncle.