Mary, Quite Contrary: The Novels of Mary Davys, 1700-1727

As a relatively unknown author, Mary Davys (1674-1732) has garnered scant scholarly attention and little admiration for her work. Those who have written on Davys’s prose fiction most often mention the last three texts she published, Familiar Letters betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady (1716), The Reform’d Coquet (1724), and The Accomplish’d Rake (1727), yet rare mention is made of her first three novels. Moreover, of her later novels, many scholars read them as socially conservative and as representations of Davys’s support of and belief in patriarchy. My project disproves the long-standing and generally agreed upon conceptions regarding Davys’s writings and demonstrates the significance of her life’s work to studies of the novel. By investigating contemporary cultural issues, discussing the popular genres and modes of early eighteenth-century England, and comparing and contrasting Davys’s fiction to other authors’, I explore the myriad ways in which Davys experimented with the formal properties of the novel. Also, by closely examining each novel independently, I foreground Davys’s willingness to engage with charged contemporary topics such as rape, suicide, the laws surrounding inheritance, and male privilege. Not only does she engage with these topics; there is a discernable voice of protest imbedded in the narratives. At times, the techniques Davys employed and the plots she created in her work obscured her social concerns, yet with close reading, subversion also surfaces as one of Davys’s methods. An analysis of Davys’s experimentations with prose fiction and form illuminates the ways in which those innovations allowed Davys to criticize the culture in which she lived. Furthermore, an investigation of the whole of Davys’s work and the totality of her novels—looking at both form and content—exemplifies the importance of Davys for students of feminist thought and the development of the novel.

Background Checks for Firearms Sales and Loans: Law, History, and Policy

This article examines past and present systems requiring that a person receive permission before buying or borrowing a firearm. The article covers laws from the eighteenth century to the present. Such laws have traditionally been rare in the United States. The major exceptions are antebellum laws of the slaves states, and of those same states immediately after the Civil War, which forbade gun ownership by people of color, unless the individual had been granted government permission. Today “universal background checks” are based on a system created by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his “Everytown” lobby. Such laws have been enacted in several states, and also proposed as federal legislation. Besides covering the private sale of firearms, they also cover most loans of firearms and the return of loaned firearms. By requiring that almost all loans and returns may only be processed by a gun store, these laws dangerously constrict responsible firearms activities, such as safety training and safe storage. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California are among the jurisdictions which have enacted less restrictive, more effective legislation which create controls on private firearms sales, without inflicting so much harm on firearms safety.

Sustainable Development and its Discontents

Sustainable development (or sustainability) is a decision-making framework for maintaining and achieving human well-being, both in the present and into the future. The framework requires both consideration and achievement of environmental protection, social justice and economic development. In that framework, environmental protection must be integrated into decisions about social and economic development, and social justice and economic viability must be integrated into decisions about environmental quality. First endorsed by the world’s nations in 1992, this framework is intended to provide an effective response to the twin global challenges of growing environmental degradation and widespread extreme poverty. Sustainability provides a framework for humans to live in harmony with nature, rather than at nature’s expense. It may therefore be one of the most important ideas to come out of the 20th century. In the last two decades, the framework has become a touchstone in nearly every economic sector and at every level of government, unleashing an extraordinary range of creativity in all of those realms. Sustainable development is having a significant effect on the practice of law and on the way in which laws are written and implemented. Understanding the framework is increasingly important for law makers and lawyers. As sustainable development (or sustainability) has grown in prominence, its critics have become more numerous and more vocal. Three major lines of criticism are that the term is “too boring” to command public attention, “too vague” to provide guidance, and “too late” to address the world’s problems. Critics suggest goals such as abundance, environmental integrity, and resilience. Beginning with the international agreements that shaped the concept of sustainable development, this Article provides a functional and historical analysis of the meaning of sustainable development. It then analyzes and responds to each of these criticisms in turn. While the critics, understood constructively, suggest ways of strengthening this framework, they do not provide a compelling alternative. The challenge for lawyers, law makers, and others is to use and improve this framework to make better decisions.