The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Writing

Innovative and comprehensive coverage of women writers' careers and literary achievements spanning many literary genres during the Victorian period.

Linda H. Peterson (Edited by)

9781107064843, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 October 2015

298 pages, 4 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'A valuable teaching tool and a relevant contribution to the study of gender and literary history. With its impressively wide range of examples of Victorian women writers and their works it reminds us of the immense work still to be done in order to gain a more complex understanding of nineteenth century literature and its institutions.' Nineteenth Century Gender Studies

The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Writing brings together chapters by leading scholars to provide innovative and comprehensive coverage of Victorian women writers' careers and literary achievements. While incorporating the scholarly insights of modern feminist criticism, it also reflects new approaches to women authors that have emerged with the rise of book history; periodical studies; performance studies; postcolonial studies; and scholarship on authorship, readership, and publishing. It traces the Victorian woman writer's career - from making her debut to working with publishers and editors to achieving literary fame - and challenges previous thinking about genres in which women contributed with success. Chapters on poetry, including a discussion of poetry in colonial and imperial contexts, reveal women's engagements with each other and male writers. Discussions on drama, life writing, reviewing, history, travel writing, and children's literature uncover the remarkable achievement of women in fields relatively unknown.

Introduction: Victorian women writers and modern literary criticism Linda H. Peterson
Part I. Victorian Women Writers' Careers: 1. Making a debut Alexis Easley
2. Becoming a professional writer Joanne Shattock
3. Working with publishers Linda H. Peterson
4. Assuming the role of editor Beth Palmer
5. Achieving fame and canonicity Alison Chapman
Part II. Victorian Women Writers' Achievements: Genres and Modes: 6. Poetry Linda K. Hughes
7. Silver-fork, industrial, and Gothic fiction Ella Dzelzainis
8. The Realist novel Deirdre d'Albertis
9. Sensation and New Woman fiction Lyn Pykett
10. Drama and theater Katherine Newey
11. Life writing Carol Hanberry Mackay
12. Travel writing Tamara S. Wagner
13. Colonial and imperial writing Mary Ellis Gibson and Jason R. Rudy
14. History writing Deborah A. Logan
15. Periodical writing Margaret Beetham
16. Reviewing Joanne Wilkes
17. Children's writing Claudia Nelson.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS]