Manley's “Feigned Scene”: The Fictions of Law at Westminster Hall

Abstract

The publication of Delarivier Manley's The New Atalantis resulted in her arrest for libel against the government; in The Adventures of Rivella, she recounted that arrest. While most critics focus on Manley's critique of government overall, attention to the intersection between her works and the law reveals that she was fascinated by and attracted to law and that her works critiqued law in both direct and indirect ways. Reading both her works and the development of seditious libel law as creative acts suggests the similarity between fictional works and the supposedly authentic and authoritative workings of law. Manley's representation of her appearance at Westminster Hall as essentially performative points towards the obsession observed within the law with theatricalization and performance. Manley's fictionalized representations of her relationship with the law, when read in light of law's fictions and what Manley saw as its deceptions, reveal law's own inner emotional life, its fictions, and in the end, its desire for fiction.