ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book hints that the Romantic moral romance sub-genre anticipated and inflected the evolution of the modern, symbolic novel, especially through the influence of writers like Henry James. It discusses the Romantic moral romance's afterlife in works like James's, but does not constitute a fully developed analysis of the connection. The book is meant to hint at one of many possible permutations in the evolution of fiction and to suggest possible avenues for future scholarly research. It provides a tentative definition of the Romantic moral romance sub-genre, and the discussion in the three subsequent chapters elaborates upon and modifies the definition. Based on Inchbald's and Hawthorne's expressed intentions and on internal evidence from A Simple Story, Nature and Art, The Scarlet Letter and The Marble Faun, nine qualities characterize the Romantic moral romance.
