“More Dead than Alive”: The Return of Not-Orlando in Charlotte Smith's The Old Manor House

Abstract

This article discusses Charlotte Smith's critique of war in her novel The Old Manor House (1793). It is argued that the return of the character Orlando Somerive from counter-revolutionary war in America is a haunting manifestation of socio-political anxiety on the eve of the Great War with France. Concerned with ideas centred on heroism and sacrifice, faith and betrayal, property and class, as well as personal and national identity, this polemical romance is shown to be a key text for understanding Romantic representations of war and its consequences.