AvuncularismAvuncularism explores the fiction of Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and many other writers in order to argue that the "nuclear" nineteenth century family was, in fact, far more fractured and contradictory than twentieth century critics have assumed. One important and long forgotten point of such fracture is the popular nickname given to pawnbrokers in the Victorian era: My Uncle. This fundamental connection between