Fictional depiction of volunteering in the second half of the nineteenth century in
Britain can, I believe, provide a commentary on social trends during this period of
rapid changes in social action. The three novels I have chosen to illustrate this
assertion (North and South, Tom Brown at Oxford, and Marcella) are considered in
the chronological order in which they were published. The novelists, Elizabeth
Gaskell, Thomas Hughes, and Mary Augusta Ward, as well as providing fictional
models of what is involved in the life of a volunteer, provide insight into three
different movements in the social theories underlying social action in the period.
The novelists themselves were involved in volunteering and in its organisation,
giving an extra dimension to the creation of their fictional world
