This chapter decouples queerness from whiteness, and modernism from its period origins, arguing that queer-of-color modernists like Nella Larsen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Matthew Lopez transform the coordinates of queerness and modernism through their misfit intersections of identity, also extending the timeframe for modernist aesthetics through a queer genealogy that extends backwards (as in Lopez’s The Inheritance, which features E.M. Forster) and forwards (as in Larsen’s Passing and its intersectional queer subtext, cinematically adapted by Rebecca Hall in 2021).

This chapter discusses the collaboratively written First Part of Sir John Oldcastle (1599) as a response to Shakespeare’s irreverent transformation of the eponymous Lollard martyr into Falstaff. Oldcastle restores the Lollard martyr to his heroic stature and is therefore often read in terms of a moderate, that is, politically loyal and conformist form of Puritanism. However, the play arguably, in its representation of nonconformity and a conditional form of political obedience, is more radical than is usually assumed and voices a nuanced challenge to royal supremacy over the Church of England. As this chapter further suggests, the play’s nonconformist ethos therefore also contributes to a more ambivalent conception of theatricality than the one embodied by Shakespeare’s Falstaff, a conception of theatricality that is defined by a self-reflexive distrust in the space between seeming and being.

Romanticism and Protestant Dissent are deeply intertwined; this essay reflects on the long history of their cross-connections. In recent decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the inspirational power of Dissenting allegiances to Romantic-era writers, and the rich literary culture of specific religious groups. Individual writers nurtured and encouraged by Dissent are being restored to prominence, and we are beginning to recover the importance of nonconformist discourse in shaping the literature and culture of the long eighteenth-century – such as the influence of Methodist life-writing and different forms of devotional practice. The essay outlines the diversity of nonconformist practice in the period, and argues for the diffuse and far-reaching impact of Protestant Dissent, through the familial and friendship circles of nonconformity, its educational institutions and publishing networks, and its influence on social and political debate. More broadly, it seeks to trace Dissenting affiliations and inspirations in the work of Romantic-era writers, exploring the case study of Anna Letitia Barbauld in detail.

Drawing upon the case studies of Norfolk North and Devizes, this chapter explores the relationship between the National Government and popular Conservatism in rural, mixed-class constituencies. Through its policies of tariff protection, targeted subsidies, marketing reforms and, in due course, preparations for wartime food production, the National Government transformed British agriculture in the 1930s. This was orchestrated on behalf of the government by Walter Elliot, the ambitious and reformist agriculture minister between 1932 and 1936, who projected the policies as integral to national recovery both by means of self-sufficiency and improved public health. The chapter shows that, despite their interventionist nature, these policies were embraced by local Conservatives as demonstrable evidence of the party’s commitment to agriculture. It also shows that historical critiques centred around the political and social control allegedly wielded by the Conservative landholding interest remained a common and updated feature of Labour and Liberal politics. Under the National Government, however, Conservatives were able to combine modernity and paternalism. Government policies helped to modernise farming methods and restore profitability, and in consequence rehabilitated traditional paternalist politics through new methods of welfare provision. Whether by means of private largesse (as in the case of Sir Thomas Cook MP in Norfolk North) or public provision, the amenities and improvements championed by rural Conservatives aimed to match those already available to the urban population and to secure for the rural worker a share in the national recovery.

The concluding chapter describes the equal sharers as nonconformists, resisters of gendered norms, and recounts the social criticism that their lifestyle can evoke. The chapter identifies factors across diverse cultures that enable this resistance. They include couples’ conscious adoption of egalitarian principles and insistence that they be put into practice, which often entails women’s sense of entitlement to equality, and their ongoing communication with their partners. In addition, anti-essentialist beliefs, familism, and anti-materialism underwrite their equality. Lessons from their families of origin, whose lives they either imitate or reject also encourage their resistance to gendered norms. Finally, the chapter enumerates the rewards equal sharing provides for men, women, marriage/partnership, and children.