Fictions of the Female Self: Charlotte Brontë, Olive Schreiner, Katherine Mansfield

Women's novels have traditionally been read as 'subjective'. Through an examination of three generations of women's fiction in the post-Romantic period, this book challenges traditional readings of women's novels and argues that fiction writing for women has often been a matter of self-erasure rather than self-inscription. In particular, it examines the changing strategies, sometimes collusive and sometimes rebellious, which Charlotte Bronte, Olive Schreiner and Katherine Mansfield employed in their tentative project of inscribing female subjectivity into the novel and story form. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-30 Charlotte Brontë: The Quick of Her Nature....Pages 31-52 Charlotte Brontë and the Imagination: A Secret and Sworn Allegiance....Pages 53-76 Olive Schreiner: The ‘Woman of Genius’....Pages 77-97 Olive Schreiner’s Organic Art....Pages 99-119 Katherine Mansfield: The Art of Self-Development....Pages 121-141 Katherine Mansfield: Far, Far Nearer....Pages 143-160 Epilogue....Pages 161-164 Back Matter....Pages 165-203