Women, Literature, and the Arts of the Countryside in Early Twentieth-Century England

This book examines the centrality of the countryside to women's work, creativity, and aspirations in early-twentieth-century England.

Judith W. Page (Author), Elise L. Smith (Author)

9781108491150, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2021

274 pages
25.9 x 18.3 x 2 cm, 0.66 kg

'In the early twentieth century, the English countryside was a site of nos-talgia and continuity as well as a place of considerable change. In Women, Literature, and the Arts of the Countryside in Early Twentieth-Century England, Judith Page and Elise Smith have written a fascinating account of this tension and of the role played by landscapes, gardens, and the natural world across a range of media, both visual and literary' Kate Flint, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature

Focusing on eight writers and artists, this book examines the centrality of the countryside to women's work, creativity, and aspirations in early-twentieth-century England. The authors introduce us to figures who should be better known today: educators, artists, novelists, poets, and memoirists. Divided into four sections, with foci on professions and education, the transformation of the countryside, arts and crafts, and dislocation and loss, this book by a literature scholar and an art historian brings an interdisciplinary perspective, providing a unique view of women's responses to such major issues of the twentieth century as war, industrialization, modernist ideology, and gender. From Mary Watts's remarkable pottery to Beatrix Potter's work as a children's author and environmentalist to Dora Carrington's haunting paintings and Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle Garden, this book challenges readers to rethink the early twentieth century through the lens of their work.

Part I. Transforming Lives: Gardening Education, Environmental Activism, and the Professional Woman: 1. Frances Garnet Wolseley and the Rise of the Professional Woman Gardener
2. Realism and Romance: Beatrix Potter's Natural Worlds
Part II. The Transformation of the Countryside: 3. 'Planted . . . in the Right Soil': Finding a Home in Two Novels by Edith Nesbit
4. To Every Field There is a History: Flora Thompson's English Countryside
Part III. The Arts and Crafts of the Garden: 5. 'A Rising Stream of Life': Nature as Ground and Spirit in the Art of Mary Watts
6. Dora Carrington's 'Phantom' Geography and the 'Crisis' of her Landscapes
Part IV. Redeeming the Waste Land: Dislocation, Loss, and Ruin: 7. 'The Garden Abides': Marion Cran and Wartime Memoirs of Life in the Garden
8. Castle and Rose: Vita-Sackville West and the Redemption of Sissinghurst
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]