With industrialization, urbanization, and the expansion of colonial powers, 18th- and 19th-centuries Britain increasingly saw relations between individuals mediated by large, impersonal structures and institutions, rather than by local customs and traditional social relations. Chief among these was the law. National legal codes, police forces, lawyers, courts, prisons, and indeed the gallows replaced traditional ways of settling disputes and adjudicating crimes. We will examine fiction from this period that addresses fundamental questions about living in a culture bound in new ways by the law and its enforcement. Can the law transcend class interests, or will it inevitably reinforce the power structures of the society that produces it? How can the law mediate between cultures with radically different conceptions of right and wrong? What is the meaning of the "ideal of justice" when legal institutions, like courts and lawyers' guilds, become power bases in themselves? How can the quest for truth in the courtroom contend with the slipperiness of language, and the seemingly limitless human capacity for conscious and unconscious deceit, from both prosecutors and defendants? Finally, how do popular novels, as part of mass culture, shape various publics' perceptions of and reactions to legal institutions? Some likely texts include Fielding's Jonathan Wild, Godwin's Caleb Williams, Scott's Heart of Midlothian, Dickens's Bleak House, Taylor's Confessions of a Thug, and selections from Browning's The Ring and the Book . Format: discussion. Requirements: regular participation, two 5- to 7-page papers and a 10- to 15-page final paper. Prerequisite: 100-level English course or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 20). Preference given to English majors. (1700-1900)