Bridget Bennett – författare

Literary criticism has been called a story of reading. In what conditions have the best critical stories been told? From Jenny Uglow's account of literary journalism in the world of Henry Fielding to Marjorie Perloff's praise for the impact of the Internet on poetry publishing and reviewing, Grub Street and the Ivory Tower gives lively case-histories of the commercial and institutional contexts of writing about writing, with an emphasis on the vexed but at best mutually beneficial relationship between journalism and literary scholarship. Topics include the traffic between universities and the wider literary world in the `long' nineteenth century; the role of Blackwood's Magazine in the First World War; Virginia Woolf's work as a literary journalist; the early days of the London Review of Books; and the contested terrain of book reviewing in contemporary Ireland. Most of the contributors are scholars who also command a non-academic readership, as reviewers and otherwise: among them Valentine Cunningham, Hermione Lee, Karl Miller, Lorna Sage, and John Sutherland.

Literary criticism has been called a story of reading. In what conditions have the best critical stories been told? From Jenny Uglow's account of literary journalism in the world of Henry Fielding to Marjorie Perloff's praise for the impact of the Internet on poetry publishing and reviewing, Grub Street and the Ivory Tower gives lively case-histories of the commercial and institutional contexts of writing about writing, with an emphasis on the vexed but at best mutually beneficial relationship between journalism and literary scholarship. Topics include the traffic between universities and the wider literary world in the `long' nineteenth century; the role of Blackwood's Magazine in the First World War; Virginia Woolf's work as a literary journalist; the early days of the London Review of Books; and the contested terrain of book reviewing in contemporary Ireland. Most of the contributors are scholars who also command a non-academic readership, as reviewers and otherwise: among them Valentine Cunningham, Hermione Lee, Karl Miller, Lorna Sage, and John Sutherland.

This set reproduces seminal writings by three exceptional nineteenth-century women. Georgina Weldon, Louisa Lowe and Susan Willis Fletcher were certified as insane by the Victorian medical establishment and were threatened with incarceration for their eccentric and transgressive behaviour. All three were remarkably resourceful and very successfully manipulated the sensationalist press to expose the 'lunacy laws' to the late-Victorian public. In doing this, they contributed to the emerging feminist critique of medicine and science. Each volume is devoted to the work of one of these exceptional women.New introductions by the editors and the late Roy Porter provide context and discussion of the pieces included, pointing to the themes and issues that they raise. With an extensive index, this collection provides an invaluable resource for those studying the role of feminism in the history of medicine and the power of the medical profession in the Victorian era.