Victorian Women's Fiction

Marriage, Freedom and the Individual

by Shirley Foster

Croom Helm, 1985, hardcover, dustjacket, ISBN 0709910312

Fine Condition, book in fine condition  with previous owners inscription on front flyleaf, dustjacket has very minor shelf and edge wear

'The study makes extensive use of letters and non-fiction, relating the opinions expressed there to the themes and methods of fictional narratives. The first chapter outlines the social and ideological framework within which the authors were writing; the subsequent five chapters deal with the individual novelists, Craik, Charlotte Bronte, Sewell, Gaskell, and Eliot, examining the works of each and also pointing to the similarities between them, thus suggesting a shared female 'voice'.
The book is designed both for readers already acquainted with Victorian women's writing and for those who wish to extend their knowledge.  By dealing with minor writers as well as better-known figures, it aims to open up new areas of critical investigation, claiming not only that many nineteenth-century female novelists have been undeservedly neglected but also that the major ones are further illuminated by being considered alongside their less familiar contemporaries.'