ABSTRACT
Chapter 11 takes as its point of departure the contrast between the centrality and publicness of the French Place Royale with the decentralized and private character of the British residential square. Covent Garden is the first example of the westward expansion of London based on private enterprise, but, as described by Daniel Defoe, it was quickly followed by numerous other squares. Their private, locked-up gardens in the middle of these squares demonstrated a focus on private life, and this focus corresponded with the rise of the novel, not least the epistolary novel. As examples of literary representations of residential squares this chapter points at texts by Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and Jane Austen. To Richardson the square defines the standard of a home, and a home defines the character of a person. In Austen’s Emma (1815) the identification between the airy square (Brunswick Square) and personality is total.
