The Miser's Daughter

The Miser's Daughter is a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth serially published in 1842. It is a historical romance that describes a young man pursuing the daughter of a miserly rich man during the 18th century. Ainsworth prefaces his novel with a discussion of greed: "To expose the folly and wickedness of accumulating wealth for no other purpose than to hoard it up, and to exhibit the utter misery of a being who should thus surrender himself to the dominion of Mammon, is the chief object of these pages." However, Ainsworth does not describe miserliness in any uniform manner. Likewise, the miser, Scarve, is someone who is sometimes depicted in a way that could provoke pity and sometimes depicted as someone to dislike. His death all alone takes a different tone from the rest of The Miser's Daughter, but it is done to reinforce what Ainsworth states in the preface. The Miser's Daughter was intended as a period novel dealing with the 18th century. The subplots allow for the introduction of the period and serve to comment on aspects of London life. The events of allow for the social values held by the different characters to be revealed and discussed. A major aspect of the work deals with inheritance and wills, a legal concept Ainsworth knew of from his background working as a lawyer earlier in his life. The will in the novel allows for the plot to progress while also allowing for a commentary on how the law affects people.