Women and Literature in Britain, 1700–1800

This book, first published in 2000, is an authoritative volume of new essays on women's writing and reading in the eighteenth century.

Vivien Jones (Edited by)

9780521586801, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 9 March 2000

348 pages, 6 b/w illus. 4 tables 2 music examples
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.44 kg

'An excellent companion … first rate articles, up to date in terms of thought, scholarhsip and biography.' Choice

This collection of essays, first published in 2000, brings together feminist critics, cultural historians and historians of publishing to provide a unique and up-to-date introduction to women's writing and its contexts in the eighteenth century. It was during this period that women began to contribute in significantly large numbers to a rapidly-expanding print culture. This volume documents the range and diversity of that contribution. It analyses the social, legal and ideological constructions of women which female writers had to negotiate, and it explores women's writing across a wide spectrum of genres - from fiction to broadside ballads, meditative poetry to confessional memoirs - as well as women's involvement as printers, sellers and purchasers of printed texts. An invaluable overview of women and literary culture in the period, Women and Literature in Britain, 1700–1800 is also an important contribution to our understanding of women's roles in the emergent public sphere of print.

Introduction Vivien Jones
Part I. Constructing Women in the Eighteenth Century: Section I. Eighteenth-Century Femininities: 1. Writings on education and conduct: arguments for female improvement Kathryn Sutherland
2. Eighteenth-century femininity: 'a supposed sexual character' Harriet Guest
3. Women and race: 'a difference of complexion' Felicity A. Nussbaum
Section II. Women, Family, and the Law: 4. Women's status as legal and civic subjects: 'a worse condition than slavery itself?' Gillian Skinner
5. Women in families: the great disturbance Ruth Perry
Section III. Women and Print: 6. Women and the business of print Paula McDowell
7. Women readers: a case study Jan Fergus
Part II. Writing Women in the Eighteenth Century: 8. (Re)discovering women's texts Isobel Grundy
9. Women and the rise of the novel: sexual prescripts Ros Ballaster
10. Women poets of the eighteenth century Margaret Anne Doody
11. Women and the theatre Angela J. Smallwood
12. Women and popular culture: gender, cultural dynamics, and popular prints Dianne Dugaw
13. Varieties of women's writing Clare Brant
Guide to further reading.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]