The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental NovelThe sentimental novel has long been noted for its liberal and humanitarian interests. In The Politics of Sensibility Markman Ellis argues that sentimental fiction also consciously participated in specific political controversies of the late eighteenth century, including emerging arguments about the ethics of slavery, the morality of commerce, and the movement to reform prostitutes. He shows that sentimental fiction was a public as well as a private