Figures of Conversion: "the Jewish Question" & English National Identity"I knew a Man, who having nothing but a summary Notion of Religion himself, and being wicked and profligate to the last Degree in his Life, made a thorough Reformation in himself, by labouring to convert a Jew." --Daniel Defoe, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) When the hero of Defoe's novel listens skeptically to this anecdote related by a French Roman Catholic priest, he little suspects that in less than a century the conversion of the Jews would become nothing short of a national project--not in France but in England. In this book, Michael Ragussis explores the phenomenon of Jewish conversion--the subject of popular enthusiasm, public scandal, national debate, and dubbed "the English madness" by its critics--in Protestant England from the 1790s through the 1870s. |
Contents
2 | 42 |
3 | 78 |
4 | 118 |
6 | 222 |
The Secret Jew in England | 234 |
Eliots English Gentleman | 260 |
Epilogue | 291 |