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Silent Voices Forgotten Novels by Victorian Women Writers
Brenda Ayres
ISBN: 0-313-32462-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-32462-8
272 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 4/30/2003
List Price: $86.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Some of the greatest English novels were written during the Victorian era, and many are still widely read and taught today. But many others written during that period have been neglected by scholars and modern readers alike. A number of these novels were written by women and were popular when published. Moreover, they reveal perspectives of 19th-century British culture not present in canonized works and therefore revise our understanding of Victorian life and attitudes. With the increasing interest in revising Victorian history and gender scholarship, especially through the rediscovery of lost texts written by women, this book is a timely and much needed study.

The expert contributors to this volume argue the value of novels by such Victorian women writers as Grace Aguilar, Catherine Crowe, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, Annie E. Holdsworth, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Flora Annie Steel, Anne Thackeray, Sarah Grand, Marie Corelli, and others. Most of the chapters address numerous works by a particular writer. Each focuses on different social issues as well, though most of them share an interest in gender politics. Topics discussed include a 19th-century Jewish novelist's navigation through Protestant spirituality, the relationship of noncanonical governess novels to class and gender issues, and forgotten works by women crime writers. Other chapters analyze how women writers impelled social reform and subverted patriarchally defined religious issues.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
    Introduction by Brenda Ayres
    "Not the Superiority of Belief, But Superiority of True Devotion": Grace Aguilar's Histories of the Spirit by Miriam Elizabeth Burstein
    The Victorian Heroine Goes A-Governessing by Cecilia Wadsö Lecaros
    The Detective Maidservant: Catherine Crowe's Susan Hopley by Lucy Sussex
    Deathbeds and Didacticism: Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna and Victorian by Mary Lenard
    Class Counts: The Domestic-Professional Writer, the Working Poor and Middle-Class Values in The Years That the Locust Hath Eaten and The Story of a Modern Woman by Sueann Schatz
    On the Face of the Waters: Flora Annie Steel and the Politics of Feminist Imperialism by LeeAnne Richardson
    Rereading the Domestic Novel: Anne Thackeray's The Story of Elizabeth by Helen Debenham
    "I am not Esther": Biblical Heroines and Sarah Grand's Challenge to Institutional Christianity in The Heavenly Twins by Jennifer Stolpa
    Dinah Mulock Craik: Sacrifice and the Fairy-order by Robyn Chandler
    Marie Corelli: "The Story of One Forgotten" by Brenda Ayres
    Bibliography
    Index
About the Author: BRENDA AYRES is Professor of English at Middle Georgia College. Her previous books include Dissenting Women in Dickens' Novels (1998) and Frances Trollope and the Novel of Social Change (2001), both available from Greenwood Press.
LCC Class: 823
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