Gildon's Golden Spies: or, minting remarks on modern societies

Abstract

The sub-genre of fiction known as the “novel of circulation” (or the “it-narrative” or “object narrative”), in which inanimate objects and animals come to life to tell tales of their adventures, gained increasing popularity throughout the eighteenth century. The currency trope was a rather common one: in Britain alone, there are 37 recorded titles up to 1900. Often, the lower the face value of the numismatic narrator, the shorter the story. The first so-called novel of this kind was Charles Gildon’s The Golden Spy (1709). In this book, the unlikely narrators, a French Louis d’or, an English guinea, a Roman crown, and a Spanish pistole, constantly quarrel to defend the greatness of their respective nations. This article aims to examine the complex relationships of both companionship and rivalry between the coins, as well as how concerns and anxieties regarding the general state of affairs were very much similar throughout the courts of Europe.