Catherine Delafield – författare

Examining letter collections published in the second half of the nineteenth century, Catherine Delafield rereads the life-writing of Frances Burney, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Delany, Catherine Winkworth, Jane Austen and George Eliot, situating these women in their epistolary culture and in relation to one another as exemplary women of the period. She traces the role of their editors in the publishing process and considers how a model of representation in letters emerged from the publication of Burney’s Diary and Letters and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Brontë. Delafield contends that new correspondences emerge between editors/biographers and their biographical subjects, and that the original epistolary pact was remade in collaboration with family memorials in private and with reviewers in public. Women’s Letters as Life Writing addresses issues of survival and choice when an archive passes into family hands, tracing the means by which women’s lives came to be written and rewritten in letters in the nineteenth century.

Examining letter collections published in the second half of the nineteenth century, Catherine Delafield rereads the life-writing of Frances Burney, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Delany, Catherine Winkworth, Jane Austen and George Eliot, situating these women in their epistolary culture and in relation to one another as exemplary women of the period. She traces the role of their editors in the publishing process and considers how a model of representation in letters emerged from the publication of Burney’s Diary and Letters and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Brontë. Delafield contends that new correspondences emerge between editors/biographers and their biographical subjects, and that the original epistolary pact was remade in collaboration with family memorials in private and with reviewers in public. Women’s Letters as Life Writing addresses issues of survival and choice when an archive passes into family hands, tracing the means by which women’s lives came to be written and rewritten in letters in the nineteenth century.

A fresh approach to building the life of Jane Austen through her letters, demonstrating that a well-known life can be reframed by being grounded in evidence of that life

The Life of the Author: Jane Austen takes readers on a literary-biographical journey through Austen''s life in letters. Using a unique non-linear approach, author Catherine Delafield explores three frames for Austen''s literary life—family, correspondents, and fiction—to suggest new pathways for the interpretation of life writing about one of the most popular and influential English novelists of all time. Delafield addresses multiple aspects of Austen''s epistolary practice and the ways in which her letters, juvenile writings, and unpublished novels have been overlaid on both biography and fiction.

Throughout the text, special attention is paid to the changing view of women’s correspondence as personal record and to Cassandra Austen''s role as editor of her sister’s surviving letters. The book opens with selected readings from Austen''s letters and a review of the family treatment of the life. Subsequent chapters discuss the female circle of correspondents in both extant and missing letters, the letter content and structure of Austen''s novels, the use of letters as representations of places and spaces based on Austen''s own lived experience of epistolary communication, and more.

The Life of the Author: Jane Austen is an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate courses on the novel, women''s writing, British writing, and life writing, as well as for general readers with interest in gaining new perspectives on Austen''s chronological life and literary output.

A fresh approach to building the life of Jane Austen through her letters, demonstrating that a well-known life can be reframed by being grounded in evidence of that life

The Life of the Author: Jane Austen takes readers on a literary-biographical journey through Austen''s life in letters. Using a unique non-linear approach, author Catherine Delafield explores three frames for Austen''s literary life—family, correspondents, and fiction—to suggest new pathways for the interpretation of life writing about one of the most popular and influential English novelists of all time. Delafield addresses multiple aspects of Austen''s epistolary practice and the ways in which her letters, juvenile writings, and unpublished novels have been overlaid on both biography and fiction.

Throughout the text, special attention is paid to the changing view of women’s correspondence as personal record and to Cassandra Austen''s role as editor of her sister’s surviving letters. The book opens with selected readings from Austen''s letters and a review of the family treatment of the life. Subsequent chapters discuss the female circle of correspondents in both extant and missing letters, the letter content and structure of Austen''s novels, the use of letters as representations of places and spaces based on Austen''s own lived experience of epistolary communication, and more.

The Life of the Author: Jane Austen is an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate courses on the novel, women''s writing, British writing, and life writing, as well as for general readers with interest in gaining new perspectives on Austen''s chronological life and literary output.

First published in 2009, this book investigates the cultural significance of nineteenth-century women’s writing and reading practices. Beginning with an examination of non-fictional diaries and the practice of diary writing, it assesses the interaction between the fictional diary and other forms of literary production such as epistolary narrative, the periodical, the factual document and sensation fiction. The discrepancies between the private diary and its use as a narrative device are explored through the writings of Frances Burney, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Brontë, Dinah Craik, Wilkie Collins and Bram Stoker. It also considers women as writers, readers and subjects and demonstrates ways in which women could become performers of their own story through a narrative method which was authorized by their femininity and at the same time allowed them to challenge the myth of domestic womanhood.

This book will be of interest to those studying 19th century literature and women in literature.

First published in 2009, this book investigates the cultural significance of nineteenth-century women’s writing and reading practices. Beginning with an examination of non-fictional diaries and the practice of diary writing, it assesses the interaction between the fictional diary and other forms of literary production such as epistolary narrative, the periodical, the factual document and sensation fiction. The discrepancies between the private diary and its use as a narrative device are explored through the writings of Frances Burney, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Brontë, Dinah Craik, Wilkie Collins and Bram Stoker. It also considers women as writers, readers and subjects and demonstrates ways in which women could become performers of their own story through a narrative method which was authorized by their femininity and at the same time allowed them to challenge the myth of domestic womanhood.

This book will be of interest to those studying 19th century literature and women in literature.