The process of writing must always also be a process of reading: the process of editing one of rereading. From the very first encounters with literary orphans (and orphan texts) which prompted the idea for a collection of essays, the cultural importance of those orphan-figures has been notable. Our initial sense that the orphan figure, placed on the margins of the family, always needing to negotiate their relationship to kinship structures, often distilled the cultural mores of their day, has broadened and deepened as we read, reviewed and commissioned essays. From the first chapter in this volume (by Cheryl L. Nixon) to the last (by Claudia Nelson), it is clear that the orphan draws attention to the processes by which kinship structures are made. Nixon and Nelson's chapters are also not alone in underscoring the ways in which familial and kinship bonds (both biological and constructed) are closely allied to financial bonds, which themselves form part of a wider examination of the cultural construction of value. As Nixon observes, the Fitzherbert case is underpinned by the ‘obvious’ argument that those who can offer emotional support are the best caregivers for a child. At the point at which the case was brought, however (and as Nixon shows), the argument was far from obvious, as convention favoured legal and financial understandings of ‘care’, underpinned by the validation of paternal right. It follows then, that, right from the outset, these chapters, and the orphans that they discuss, cause us to examine and question the presumptions we bring to the concept of inheritance, adoption and even the nature of being human.

The chapters emphasise that being orphan is far more than a matter of bereavement, although it is, of course, that too. Our contributors demonstrate that being orphaned is a state of mind, which informs the perceptions of the individual and remains throughout life. Thus, Kevin Binfield shows how bereavement colours the actions of Charlotte Smith Richardson, from her earliest poems to her last will and testament. This is then also part of a larger interrogation of the role of charity and patronage, which informs many other chapters including those by Harriet Salisbury, Joey Kingsley, Laura Peters, Jane Carroll and Claudia Nelson. Many of these chapters, therefore, pose important questions about the motivation of benefactors, and the impact of charity and patronage upon the lives of the recipients.