Redecorating the Ruin: Women and Antiquarianism in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall

Abstract

This essay examines antiquarianism in Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall (1762). Using a variety of source material, I uncover Scott’s personal connections to eminent antiquaries and trace previously unknown antiquarian antecedents to the novel. I argue that Millenium Hall demonstrates a compelling case study for the ways in which local British history and archaeological interests appealed to eighteenth-century women. Furthermore, I claim that Sarah Scott appropriates antiquaries’ nationalist sentiments in surprising ways. By overlaying ruined architectural sites with images of ruined women, and by emphasizing women’s learning and matrilineal genealogy, Scott shapes antiquarianism into a new kind of material history that serves her feminist agenda.