{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260406T231758Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLKV2XTY?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"B0CLKV2XTY","authors":["David Mark Diamond"],"book_id":"9780813950891","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780813950891","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780813950891.jpg?v=20260406T231758Z%3A2026-04-06T23%3A17%3A58Z","description":"How Calvinist theology helps us read characters in the early British novel, shedding new light on the origins of modern secularism The strangeness of fictional characters in the eighteenth-century novel has been well documented. They are two-dimensional yet complex; they suggest unstable correspondences between the external and the internal. In Reading Character after Calvin , David Mark Diamond traces the religious genealogy of such figures, arguing that two-dimensionality reproduces through form a model of interpretation that originates in Calvinist Protestant theology. In Calvin’s teachings, every person possessed a spiritual status as saved or damned, and their external features ostensibly reflected this inward condition. This belief, however, was always haunted by the possibility of a discrepancy between the two. Diamond shows how Calvinism survives in the pages of early novels as a guide to discerning religious hypocrisy and, eventually, distinctions related to imperial race-making. He tracks the migration of Calvinist character detection from its original, sectarian contexts to the worlds of eighteenth-century fiction, revealing the process by which religion came unbound from doctrinal orthodoxy and was grafted onto the ambition of racialized global dominion. Analyzing a diverse set of texts, Diamond offers a fresh account of both how literary character worked and how it works to naturalize, question, or critique the violence of empire.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780813950891","publication_date":"20240401","publisher":"University of Virginia Press","slug":"reading-character-after-calvin","subtitle":"Secularization, Empire, and the Eighteenth-century Novel","title":"Reading Character After Calvin"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"LIT024030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"18th Century Literature","score":0.7662,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.761,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004120","confidence_band":"medium","label":"British & Irish Literary Criticism","score":0.7404,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"LIT024030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"18th Century Literature","score":0.7662,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.761,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004120","confidence_band":"medium","label":"British & Irish Literary Criticism","score":0.7404,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"LIT006000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Literary Theory","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024030","confidence_band":"high","label":"18th Century Literature","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025040","confidence_band":"high","label":"Religion in Literature","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"high","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT026000","confidence_band":"high","label":"LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"REL093000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Calvinist Christianity","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"18th Century Literature","score":0.7662,"slug":"18th-century-literature"},{"label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.761,"slug":"race-culture-in-literature"},{"label":"British & Irish Literary Criticism","score":0.7404,"slug":"british-irish-literary-criticism"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy 18th Century Literature","Good for readers interested in british","Good for readers who enjoy 18th Century Literature and Race & Culture in Literature."],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Elaine Bander"],"book_id":"9781684485857","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781684485857.jpg?v=20260406T231758Z%3A2026-04-06T23%3A17%3A58Z","score":10.6717,"title":"Reading With Jane Austen","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781684485857"},{"authors":["Rebecca Anne Barr","Sylvie Kleiman-Lafon","Sophie Vasset","& 0 more"],"book_id":"9781526147967","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781526147967.jpg?v=20260406T231758Z%3A2026-04-06T23%3A17%3A58Z","score":9.3892,"title":"Bellies, Bowels and Entrails in the Eighteenth Century","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781526147967"},{"authors":["Adam C. Roberts","Adam Charles Roberts"],"book_id":"9780340807620","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780340807620.jpg?v=20260406T231758Z%3A2026-04-06T23%3A17%3A58Z","score":8.6821,"title":"Victorian Culture and Society","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780340807620"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:christian imperialism"],"label":"Christian","score":0.3947,"slug":"christian"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:abolitionist novels"],"label":"Novels","score":0.3853,"slug":"novels"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:british novel"],"label":"Novel","score":0.1622,"slug":"novel"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:black atlantic"],"label":"Black","score":0.1432,"slug":"black"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:british novel"],"label":"British","score":0.0475,"slug":"british"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Christian, Black, British.","Reading lane: 18th Century Literature and Race & Culture in Literature.","Publisher: University of Virginia Press."]},"llm_signals":null,"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":false,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":1,"goodreads_reviews_count":1,"quality_score":0.8135}}