The History of British Women's Writing, 1830-1880

Description

This volume charts the rise of professional women writers across diverse fields of intellectual enquiry and through different modes of writing in the period immediately before and during the reign of Queen Victoria. It demonstrates how, between 1830 and 1880, the woman writer became an agent of cultural formation and contestation, appealing to and enabling the growth of female readership while issuing a challenge to the authority of male writers and critics. Of especial importance were changing definitions of marriage, family and nation, of class, and of morality as well as new conceptions of sexuality and gender, and of sympathy and sensation. The result is a richly textured account of a radical and complex process of feminization whereby formal innovations in the different modes of writing by women became central to the aesthetic, social, and political formation of British culture and society in the nineteenth century. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxix Introduction: The ‘Business’ of Writing Women (Lucy Hartley)....Pages 1-20 Front Matter ....Pages 21-21 The Feminisation of Literary Culture (Joanne Shattock)....Pages 23-38 Gender, Authorship, and the Periodical Press (Alexis Easley)....Pages 39-55 The Professional Woman Writer (Linda K. Hughes)....Pages 56-70 Front Matter ....Pages 71-71 Mapping the Nation: Scotland and Britain (Suzanne Gilbert)....Pages 73-90 Representing Ireland (Margaret Kelleher)....Pages 91-106 Runaway Discourse: Women Write Slavery, Race, and Empire (Cora Kaplan)....Pages 107-124 Women Writers and the Provincial Novel (Josephine McDonagh)....Pages 125-142 Library Lives of Women (Susan David Bernstein)....Pages 143-159 Front Matter ....Pages 161-161 Travel Writing (Ella Dzelzainis)....Pages 163-177 Religious Genres (Julie Melnyk)....Pages 178-195 Women Playwrights and the London Stage (Sharon Aronofsky Weltman)....Pages 196-211 Life Writing (Valerie Sanders)....Pages 212-228 Scientific and Medical Genres (Claire Brock)....Pages 229-243 Front Matter ....Pages 245-245 Creativity (Alison Chapman)....Pages 247-263 Sensation, Art, and Capital (Lucy Hartley)....Pages 264-281 Writing across the Class Divide (Florence S. Boos)....Pages 282-302 Friendship and Intimacy (Jill Rappoport)....Pages 303-319 Sympathy (Carolyn Burdett)....Pages 320-335 Back Matter ....Pages 336-349