ABSTRACT
In The 'Invisible Hand' and British Fiction 1818–1860, Eleanor Courtemanche has produced a reading of the nineteenth-century British novel as a form that owes a crucial and largely unrecognized debt to Adam Smith's insights into modern economic and social life. The first third of Courtemanche's book economically lays out Smith's account of the workings of society, lingering on the metaphor of the invisible hand as outlined in the passages of three well-known books. They are The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations and 'The History of Astronomy'. Early on, Courtemanche adds to her initial account of the invisible hand and its model of the consequences of action with a further argument. The argument was about the stress laid by Smith on the differing points of view of different subjects, and how these diverse viewpoints affect understanding of economic and social life.
