Gambling permeated the daily lives of eighteenth-century Britons of all classes. This book explicates the relationship between the rampant gambling in eighteenth-century England, the new forms of gambling-inspired capitalism that transformed British society, and novels that interrogate the new socio-economy of long odds and lucky breaks.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: The Gambling Culture of Eighteenth-Century Britain 'Putting to Hazard a Certainty': Lotteries and the Romance of Gambling in Eighteenth-Century England (Sir Charles Grandison, The Excursion) Cheating, Calculation, and the Episodic Romance of Gambling (Hoyle's Short Treatise , Ferdinand Count Fathom, Amelia ) The Gambling Man of Feeling: Sublime and Sentimental Gambling ( Cecilia, The Adventures of David Simple, The Mysteries of Udolpho ) The Lady's Last Stake: Camilla and the Female Gambler Children's Games 'Abroad and at Home': Belinda, Education, and Empire The Confidence Man: Persuasion and the Romance of Risk Afterword: The Eighteenth-Century Risk Society Works Cited Index

JESSICA RICHARD is Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University, USA. She has published articles on Rasselas, Belinda, and Frankenstein. She is the editor of The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (Broadview, 2008).