British Women’s Writing From Brontë to Bloomsbury, Volume 3 : 1880s and 1890s

This five-volume series, British Women’s Writing From Brontë to Bloomsbury, 1840–1940 , historically contextualizes and traces developments in women’s fiction from 1840 to 1940. Critically assessing both canonical and lesser-known British women’s writing decade by decade, it redefines the landscape of women’s authorship across a century of dynamic social and cultural change. With each of its volumes devoted to two decades, the series is wide in scope but historically sharply defined. Volume 3: 1880s and 1890s analyses confluences and developments in women’s writing across two fin-de-siècle decades. Its 16 original essays reconsider fiction by canonical and lesser-known women writers, redefining the landscape of female authorship during these decades. By exploring women’s fiction within the social and cultural contexts of the 1880s and 1890s, the collection distils in terms of women’s writing how these decades discretely build on earlier work that is identifiably Victorian. The last two decades of the century, in distinctive ways, witnessed literary experiment, reflection on the limits of realism, and a fruitful sense of confusion about what was ending and what was about to begin. Acknowledgements Series Introduction Works Cited Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1 Introduction Women’s Writing of the 1880s Women’s Writing of the 1890s Note References Part I Women’s Writing of the 1880s 2 Edith Simcox on George Eliot: Transgendered Portraits in Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women, and Lovers Notes Works Cited 3 Domestic Metaphors and Scientific Illustration: Frances Power Cobbe and the Anti-Vivisection Movement in the 1880s Historical Background The Janus of Science Light in Dark Places Jack. A Mendicant Pompey’s Peril Conclusion Works Cited 4 ‘A Ghost Indeed’: Spectralising the Female Householder in Margaret Oliphant’s 1880s Fiction Debates about Married Women’s Property in the 1880s The Ghost Story and Generational Ties Between Women The Female Householder and Exclusion in The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow Works Cited 5 Between the Aesthete and the Shopworker: Mind and Labour In Vernon Lee and Amy Levy Works Cited 6 Writing for the Masses: Ouida and Newspaper Syndication Works Cited 7 Adopting the Next Generation: Parenting in Women’s Writing of the 1880s Family Business: Oliphant’s Hester (1883) Ghostly Influence in Late Victorian Domestic Fiction: Yonge’s Chantry House (1886) Influence and Inheritance in Craik’s Adoption Novel King Arthur (1886). Notes Works Cited 8 ‘Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves’: Anna Kingsford’s Dreams and Dream-Stories (1888) Notes Works Cited 9 ‘We are one’: Fellowship Ideals and Social Transformation in Mona Caird’s The Wing of Azrael Notes Works Cited Part II Women’s Writing of the 1890s 10 Notable or Invisible? Reassessing Women Writers of the 1890s Introduction The Late-Victorian Literary Marketplace John Strange Winter: A Thoroughly Domestic Woman? A Room of One’s Own?: The Politics of Space The Rebel of the Family: Eliza Lynn Linton Florence Marryat: A Purveyor of Dangerously Inflammatory Fiction? Conclusion Notes Works Cited 11 Exploring Women’s Possibilities at the Fin de Siècle: Sarah Grand’s Quest for Women’s Enlightenment Notes Works Cited 12 New Humour, New Dialogue: Ada Leverson's Contributions to Punch and The Yellow Book Notes Works Cited 13 George Paston’s Fin-de-Siècle Feminism: Caught Between a Book and a Hard Place A Modern Amazon A Study in Prejudices The Career of Candida A Fair Deceiver A Writer of Books Conclusion Notes Works Cited 14 ‘A good deal of risk ... and a chance of danger’: Detection, Adventure, and Violence in Beatrice Heron-Maxwell’s The Adventures of a Lady Pearl-Broker Notes Works Cited 15 Woman Hate, Disgust, and National Happiness in the 1890s: Marie Corelli’s The Sorrows of Satan Phenomenally Popular Marie Corelli’s Approach to Literary Emotions The Pursuit of Happiness Accounting for the Dissatisfaction of 1890s Society A Blueprint for the Successful Pursuit of Happiness? Woman Hate in Explorations of Happiness and Unhappiness Concluding Thoughts About Modernity, Happiness, and Woman Hate—Disgust Notes References 16 ‘[S]uch a nasty, sneering book’: Class, Gender, and Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler’s Concerning Isabel Carnaby Works Cited 17 Women’s Quest for Independence in the 1890s: Mary Cholmondeley’s Diana Tempest and Red Pottage Works Cited Index