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An emblematic figure of the ´bourgeois century,´ the parvenu represents the Other on which a society depends. This drama of exclusion is symptomatic of nineteenth-century society: ambivalent about social mobility, oscillating between a new sense of opportunity for all and a backward-looking retrenchment to rigid social structures.

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PART I: THEORY OF THE PARVENU The Paradox of the Parvenu The Uses if Parody The Jew: the Parvenu of Parvenus Between Pariah and Parvenu PART II: SARTORIAL STORIES: AT THE FRINGES OF THE SOCIAL SPHERE On Ostentation: The Sartorial Metaphor The Parvenu´s Livery Emilie de Fontaine´s Sartorial Crusade PART III: THE POETICS OF IDENTITY The ´Mourning of Origins´ PART IV: THE FICTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENT On Kinship The Family Parasite Ideal and Real Bride: The Newcomer´s Family Fantasy The End of Exogamy PART V: TOPOGRAPHY OF CONTEST Topography and Mobility The ´Imaginary Museum´ PART VI: A STRANGE BESTIARY: ALTERITY AND THE QUESTION OF HUMANITY The Question of Humanity Half-Peacock, Half Vulture: The Portrait of the Parvenu and the Financier as Animal The Metaphor Literalized: Toussenel´s Bestiary The Human Question, Again

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"Longing to Belong is a perceptive and engaging addition to the scholarly conversation about the restructuring of national identity in the post-revolutionary era." - Kristin Samuelian, Associate Professor of English, George Mason University, USA

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Sarah Juliette Sasson is a lecturer in French and Romance Philology at Columbia Univeristy.

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