Key Popular Women Writers – serie

Once dismissed as a "purveyor of dangerous inflammatory fiction," Florence Marryat has suffered a reputation as a trashy and formulaic novelist, unworthy of critical attention. / Critics have consistently overlooked the radicalism of her work, which confronts themes such as marital violence, single motherhood, and female sexuality. By gathering evidence from across the range of her fiction, Catherine Pope establishes Marryat as an important feminist writer - one who consistently challenged prevailing ideas of femininity in both her life and her work. / With a life neatly spanning the Victorian period, Marryat (1833-99) was well placed to experience and to observe the ways in which women's lives were transformed during the nineteenth century. At the time of her birth, a wife's legal identity was entirely subsumed into that of her husband; by her death in 1899, women had benefitted from momentous changes that granted them a separate identity and greater rights over their bodies and personal property. As Pope argues, Marryat contributed to the debates that heralded these changes, partly through her ability to produce sensation novels at a prodigious rate, and also by pursuing a scandalous and thoroughly un-Victorian lifestyle.

This innovative new work presents a critical, aesthetic and historical approach to the significant novelist and critic Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (1812-1880). / Jewsbury was a truly accomplished Victorian woman of letters. She wrote six novels, two novels for children, articles and short stories as well as innumerable book reviews and influential reports for publishers. Her work is being newly recovered by a new generation. / Her first two novels, Zoe: A History of Two Lives (1845) and The Half Sisters (1848), were best sellers, and considered scandalous when published. They, like all of her novels, concern the difficulties of women in traditional roles - the problems of careers for women, the deficiencies of education for women, women's unrealistic expectations of marriage, and their lack of satisfaction with their lives. / Active in London literary society, Jewsbury developed friendships with Charles Dickens, George Lewes, Thomas Henry Huxley, W. E. Forster, George Bentley, James Anthony Froude, Frances Power Cobbe, and John Ruskin, among others. Throughout her life Jewsbury carried on extensive correspondences with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, most famously with Jane Carlyle. Always an advocate for women's rights, she influenced the lives of women through her works and her personal and professional guidance, ultimately shaping the reading and thinking of women in her own and another generation. / Contents: Ch. 1: Introduction: Rediscovering Geraldine Jewsbury; Ch. 2: Early Influences: Becoming Geraldine Jewsbury; Ch.3: The Carlyles and Zoe: Discovering the World; Ch.4: Jewsbury's Career in Fiction: Educating Readers; Ch.5: Jane Carlyle, Walter Mantell, and Other Friendships: Developing Intimacies; Ch. 6: Jewsbury as a Reviewer and Editor: Forwarding the Cause of Women; Ch.7: Jewsbury as a Publisher's Reader: Reading for Women; Ch. 8: Jewsbury's Legacy: Jewsbury Today.

This concise new book provides close readings of both canonical and less familiar novels and articles by the novelist Margaret Oliphant (1828-97). They show how she maintained a spirited dialogue with her age, confronting its ingrained prejudices, while reinforcing some of them herself. / A prolific novelist, auto/biographer, and periodical writer, Mrs. Oliphant was also a highly contradictory figure. Not just for her apparently anti-feminist standpoint on many issues, but also for her disparaging dismissal of the 'sensation' novel of the 1860s, while freely adopting some of its features in her own writing (including supernatural tales). / This study argues that Oliphant's outlook on nineteenth-century culture was both provocative and unpredictable. Her best novels are witty, acerbic, and deeply ironic as she dismantles the sacred assumptions of the Victorian middle classes, and updates her chronicles of judgemental communities to tackle the extremes of idealism and inertia. / Oliphant was a keen observer of dysfunctional families, male professionals, and religious snobbery. She notices bodies and clothes, the touch of hands, unflattering complexions, loud colours, and limp muslins. Her widows refuse to retire into the shadows, while her men are notoriously inept and lethargic. This thorough reappraisal of the most controversial areas of her writing draws on fresh critical approaches, from clothes history to theories of embodied subjectivity, as well as the rich field of journalism studies.

This concise new book provides close readings of both canonical and less familiar novels and articles by the novelist Margaret Oliphant (1828-97). They show how she maintained a spirited dialogue with her age, confronting its ingrained prejudices, while reinforcing some of them herself. / A prolific novelist, auto/biographer, and periodical writer, Mrs. Oliphant was also a highly contradictory figure. Not just for her apparently anti-feminist standpoint on many issues, but also for her disparaging dismissal of the 'sensation' novel of the 1860s, while freely adopting some of its features in her own writing (including supernatural tales). / This study argues that Oliphant's outlook on nineteenth-century culture was both provocative and unpredictable. Her best novels are witty, acerbic, and deeply ironic as she dismantles the sacred assumptions of the Victorian middle classes, and updates her chronicles of judgemental communities to tackle the extremes of idealism and inertia. / Oliphant was a keen observer of dysfunctional families, male professionals, and religious snobbery. She notices bodies and clothes, the touch of hands, unflattering complexions, loud colours, and limp muslins. Her widows refuse to retire into the shadows, while her men are notoriously inept and lethargic. This thorough reappraisal of the most controversial areas of her writing draws on fresh critical approaches, from clothes history to theories of embodied subjectivity, as well as the rich field of journalism studies. / Contents [provisional]: Ch.1. Margaret Oliphant: 'One of those difficult cases for criticism'; Ch.2, 'General utility woman' or Critic of the Age?; Ch.3. Mothers, Daughters, Wives, Widows; Ch. 4. Mrs Oliphant's Clothes and Bodies; Ch.5. 'Only a Man': Oliphant's Masculinities; Ch.6. The Sensational and Supernatural; Ch.7. Conclusion.

This new book examines the career and works of Mrs Henry [Ellen] Wood [nee Ellen Strand Price, 1814-87), the author of the enormously successful and sensational mid-Victorian bestseller: East Lynne (1861), and many others. / Thomas Seccombe's DNB notice of Mrs. Wood in 1900 said that The Channings had sold 200,000 by 1898; The Shadow of Ashlydyat (1863) had reached its 150th thousand, and her other titles were continuing to sell strongly up to the second world war of 1939-45. East Lynne, her most famous novel, sold more than 1 million copies and Danesbury House sold 100,000 copies in her lifetime. / Such a prolific novelist who enjoyed literary success and fame during her life, Wood dwindled to a minor literary figure in the following century as a consequence of fin-de-siècle changing literary tastes. However, in recent years, Wood has become the object of renewed scholarly interest but attention is still mostly paid to East Lynne. As Professor Costantini now shows, what is needed is a wider exploration of her oeuvre as well as a reflection on some elusive aspects of her professional figure. / Wood shunned publicity and led a quiet family life despite the important role she played in the Victorian print industry. In ways similar to her life, her oeuvre still challenges interpretation as it perplexingly combines sensationalism with domestic ideals. By reading Wood through the lens of feminist theory, this book sheds new light onto relevant aspects of her career and personality. The book is devoted to the complexities of her fiction. It ascertains the extent to which her generic experiments and characterisation convey a subtle critique of gender roles intertwined with seemingly reassuring images of domesticity.

This new book examines the career and works of Mrs Henry [Ellen] Wood [nee Ellen Strand Price, 1814-87), the author of the enormously successful and sensational mid-Victorian bestseller: East Lynne (1861), and many others. / Thomas Seccombe's DNB notice of Mrs. Wood in 1900 said that The Channings had sold 200,000 by 1898; The Shadow of Ashlydyat (1863) had reached its 150th thousand, and her other titles were continuing to sell strongly up to the second world war of 1939-45. East Lynne, her most famous novel, sold more than 1 million copies and Danesbury House sold 100,000 copies in her lifetime. / Such a prolific novelist who enjoyed literary success and fame during her life, Wood dwindled to a minor literary figure in the following century as a consequence of fin-de-siècle changing literary tastes. However, in recent years, Wood has become the object of renewed scholarly interest but attention is still mostly paid to East Lynne. As Professor Costantini now shows, what is needed is a wider exploration of her oeuvre as well as a reflection on some elusive aspects of her professional figure. / Wood shunned publicity and led a quiet family life despite the important role she played in the Victorian print industry. In ways similar to her life, her oeuvre still challenges interpretation as it perplexingly combines sensationalism with domestic ideals. By reading Wood through the lens of feminist theory, this book sheds new light onto relevant aspects of her career and personality. The book is devoted to the complexities of her fiction. It ascertains the extent to which her generic experiments and characterisation convey a subtle critique of gender roles intertwined with seemingly reassuring images of domesticity. / Contents: Introduction. Ch.1: The necessity and traps of Victorian marriage; Ch. 2: Variations of the Griselda theme; Ch. 3: Desiring subjects and the effects of immoderacy; Ch.4: The transgressive lady and the failings of patriarchy; Ch.5: Unconventional low-class women; Bibliography.

By the standards of any age, Frances (Fanny) Trollope was an extraordinary woman who led an extraordinary life. She did not begin writing until she was 53, but in the 24 years between 1832 and 1856 she produced no fewer than 40 books, comprising 150 volumes. E impulse was to save her family from financial ruin. / The Mother of the novelist Anthony Trollope, she was born at Stapleton near Bristol on 10 March 1779. She lived through tumultuous events: the madness of George III, the Napoleonic wars, the French Revolution and the threat of civil war in Italy. The political, economic and social upheavals of the age were mirrored by Trollope's own restless travels through Europe and America, driven by the need to support her family and by her own thirst for company and social and intellectual stimulation. / She drew unashamedly on her own experiences, the people she met on her travels and her large circle of friends and acquaintances to produce her copious range of novels and travel books. She was prolific, critically well-received and very popular. It is puzzling to know why she has apparently been marginalised and largely over-looked, particularly given the radical and controversial nature of much of her writing, combined with her unerring eye for the pretentious, exuberant comic sense, and sardonic wit. This book exposes the reasons for Trollope's unjustified neglect and seeks to give her the recognition she deserves.