Emotion, Intimacy and the Miniature Portrait in Jane Harvey’s Gothic Castle Novels

Abstract

Jane Harvey was a Newcastle-based author with a nationwide readership who published between 1794-1830. Little biographical information about Harvey survives, but we know that she spent some of her adult life in the centre of Newcastle. This article focuses on Harvey’s use of miniature portraits as a Gothic motif in her early castle novels: Warkfield Castle (1802) and The Castle of Tynemouth (1806), both published with Minerva Press. In Warkfield Castle, the miniature portrait guides the reader through the novel and acts as an indicator of intimacy. In The Castle of Tynemouth, these themes are also apparent, but the miniature is used to facilitate a Gothic doubling of female characters. In both novels, the miniature is heavily invested with emotion and sentiment, which reflects the use of the miniature portrait by middle-class members of society at the time. By the early nineteenth century, miniature portraits were readily available, and their creation was likened to a production line. The small scale of the miniature invokes a Gothic uneasiness – a recreation of the familiar in a different form. It can be transported and concealed with ease, and Harvey uses this portability as a vehicle for the plot in both novels. The complexity of miniature portraits invites the reader to scrutinise narrative and characters, and provides a fascinating motif to explore throughout eighteenth and nineteenth century literature.