From Anthony Trollop to Sinclair Lewis, and from Jane Austen to James Joyce and John Steinbeck, many important novels touch on fundamental questions about the role of money in human affairs. These questions are explored in this volume through the lens of law and literature. The sixteen essays collected here, by important theorists from a range of disciplines, shed new light on the impact of economic change, from the Industrial Revolution to the Great Depression. Students of economics and business will gain a new appreciation of literature's insights on singular events and human emotions. Similarly, scholars and students of literature will gain an appreciation for the power of law and economics to inform literary and social analysis. The volume's focus on novels about money and economic upheaval showcases the power of the disciplinary marriage of law and literature.

Power, Prose, and Purse is an edited collection of essays that draw connections between literature, economics and law. The essays discuss novels that explore the time period between the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression and analyze the insights that novelists may offer to law and economics, while noting the tensions among these paradigms.