Todd, Janet M. 1942-

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Todd, Janet M. 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born September 10, 1942, in Wales; daughter of George and Elizabeth Dakin; married Aaron R. Todd (a professor of mathematics), December 21, 1966; divorced, 1984; married Derek Hughes (a professor of literature), 2001; children: Julian, Clara. Education: Cambridge University, B.A., 1964; graduated from University of Leeds, 1968; University of Florida, Ph.D., 1971.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cambridge, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and educator. School teacher in Cape Coast, Ghana, 1964-65; University College of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, lecturer in English, 1965-66; English teacher in Bawku, Ghana, 1966-67; University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, assistant professor of English, 1972-74; Rutgers University, Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ, assistant professor, 1974-78, associate professor, 1978-81, professor of English, 1981-83; Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, England, fellow in English, 1983-89; University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, professor of English literature, 1989-2000; University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, research professor, 2000-04; University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Herbert J.C. Grierson Professor of English literature, 2005—, Centre for the Novel, cofounder and director, 2005—. Visiting professor at the University of Southampton, 1982-83, Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and University of Rajasthan, 1988.

MEMBER:

British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, Jane Austen Society (executive).

AWARDS, HONORS:

ACLS Award, 1978-79; Guggenheim fellow, 1981-82; Leverhulme Award, 1991-93; Huntington Library fellow, 1993; Folger Shakespeare Library fellow, 1994-95; British Academy leave, 1996, and small grant, 1999; Newham College fellow, 1998; Lucy Cavendish College fellow, 1999; grant, British Academy, 2004.

WRITINGS:

In Adam's Garden: A Study of John Clare's Pre-asylum Poetry, University of Florida Press (Gainesville, FL), 1973.

Mary Wollstonecraft: An Annotated Bibliography, Garland (New York, NY), 1976.

Women's Friendship in Literature, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1980.

(With Madeleine Forell Marshall) English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century, University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY), 1982.

(With Moira Ferguson) Mary Wollstonecraft, Twayne (Boston, MA), 1984.

Sensibility: An Introduction, Methuen (New York, NY), 1986.

Feminist Literary History, Routledge (New York, NY), 1988.

The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing, and Fiction, 1660-1800, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Gender, Art, and Death, Continuum (New York, NY), 1993.

The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, Deutsch (London, England), 1996, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1997.

The Critical Fortunes of Aphra Behn, Camden House (Columbia, SC), 1998.

Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict, 1798, Viking (New York, NY), 2003, published as Daughters of Ireland: The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2004.

The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle, Counterpoint (Berkeley, CA), 2007.

EDITOR

A Wollstonecraft Anthology, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1977, published with an introduction by husband, Aaron R. Todd, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Gender and Literary Voice, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1980.

Be Good, Sweet Maid: An Anthology of Women & Literature, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1981.

Men by Women, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1981.

Jane Austen: New Perspectives, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1983.

Women Writers Talking, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1983.

A Dictionary of British and American Women Writers, 1660-1800, Rowman & Allanheld (Totowa, NJ), 1985.

Women and Film, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Dale Spender) British Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, Continuum, 1989, published as British Women Writers: An Anthology from the Fourteenth Century to the Present, P. Bedrick (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Marilyn Butler and assistant editor Emma Rees-Mogg) The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Volume 1: Mary; The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria; The Cave of Fancy, Volume 2: Elements of Morality; Young Grandison, Volume 3: Of the Importance of Religious Opinions, Volume 4: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters; The Female Reader; Original Stories; Letters on the Management of Infants; Lessons, Volume 5: A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Hints, Volume 6: An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; Letters to Joseph Johnson; Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; Letters to Gilbert Imlay, Volume 7: In Poetry; Contributions to the Analytical Review, 1788-1797, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary, Maria, [and] Matilda, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; The Rover, and Other Works, Penguin (New York, NY), 1992.

The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume 1: Poetry, Volume 2: Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684-87), Volume 3: The Fair Jilt and Other Short Stories, Volume 4: Seneca Unmasqued and Other Prose Translations, Volume 5: The Plays, 1671-1677, Volume 6: The Plays, 1678-1682, Volume 7: The Plays, 1682-1696, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1992-96.

Mary Wollstonecraft, Political Writings, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1993.

(With Elizabeth Spearing) Counterfeit Ladies, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Poems of Aphra Behn: A Selection, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Aphra Behn Studies, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Aphra Behn, Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister, Penguin (New York, NY), 1996.

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Everyman (Chapel Hill, NC), 1997.

Jane Austen, Love and Friendship, Everyman (Chapel Hill, NC), 1997.

(With Antje Blank) Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Pickering & Chatto (Brookfield, VT), 1997.

Aphra Behn, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1999.

(And compiler) The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Derek Hughes) The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Jane Austen in Context, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Antje Blank) Jane Austen, Persuasion, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Linda Bree) Jane Austen: The Later Manuscripts, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2008.

Editor, with Marie Roberts, of the journal Women's Writing; general editor of Jane Austen, nine volumes, Cambridge University Press.

SIDELIGHTS:

Janet M. Todd has focused much of her career on early women writers both as a critic and as a contextual editor of their works. Todd has edited the works of such literary luminaries as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, and Eliza Fenwick. More recently, Todd has turned to biography as a way to reach a more general readership while discussing the significance of these authors.

In 1996, Todd released a biography of Aphra Behn. In the Library Journal, Thomas L. Cooksey "highly recommended" Todd's portrait of the woman known as the first female professional writer in English literature. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn is, asserted Cooksey, "as engrossing and entertaining as it is thorough and well researched." Todd's biography conveys "Behn's vivacious character and the mores of the time," appraised New York Times Book Review contributor Andrea Cooper.

In Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life, Todd provides a biography of the radical writer who helped pioneer women's emancipation. While numerous biographies of Wollstonecraft have been written with a focus on her political views and activities, Todd emphasizes the reformer's private life and personality. For the study, Todd culled information from new archival material, much of it focusing on Wollstonecraft as a child who watched while her middle-class father failed in several businesses. Todd also had access to Wollencraft's voluminous correspondence with her sisters, and the author discusses Wollstonecraft's difficult relationship with them and other members of her family. Part of the problem with her siblings stemmed from their partnership in a school that ultimately failed, placing all of the sisters in dire financial straits.

Writing in the Journal of Women's History, Mary Louise Roberts found that "Todd's approach—to show the writer's every little last pore and flaw—is no doubt an effort to tone down the triumphalist pitch of biographies that feminists in the 1970s produced." The reviewer also noted that "Todd's grouchy approach to her subject is a breath of fresh air" and went on to call the biography "enormously intelligent." In a review for Signs, Anne K. Mellor noted that the author's "account of Wollstonecraft's adolescence in Beverly and of her later move to Hoxton sheds new light on the development of Wollstonecraft's personality." Mellor also noted that "Todd writes with verve, authority … and rhetorical grace." Mark Philp, a contributor to the English Historical Review, considered the biography to be "a detailed, accurate, sympathetic, but unsentimental portrayal of a woman who wrote herself into the world of radical London and revolutionary France." Philp concluded: "By drawing heavily on Wollstonecraft's candid self-examination, Todd's biography is both a fitting testament and an impressive achievement." Patricia A. Beaber, in a review for the Library Journal, believed that the biography was "incisive, scholarly." Todd is also editor of The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, which contains all of Wollstonecraft's known correspondence. A Contemporary Review contributor commented that the volume is "a well edited collection."

Wollstonecraft also plays an integral role in the story Todd tells in Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict, 1798, also published as Daughters of Ireland: The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation. The book recounts the role of the aristocratic Kingsborough family, including Lord and Lady Kingston, in the 1798 Irish Rising, with an emphasis on the sisters Mary and Margaret. According to Todd, Wollstonecraft influenced the sisters greatly when she served as the family governess and tutor to the two girls. As Todd retells the story, it was Wollstonecraft who most influenced Margaret in her support for radical intellectuals and the United Irishmen, who guided the ill- fated rebellion. In addition to retelling the story of this family, Todd also recounts the political and social context within which the 1798 uprising takes place.

In a review of Rebel Daughters, a Contemporary Review contributor noted that the author "has given readers a ‘good read’ in which high politics and low behaviour mingle." A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book "well-researched and skillfully written" and also noted: "Todd has written an excellent historical account of one fascinating Irish family and how it influenced Ireland during a crucial period of its history." Gail Benjafield commented in the Library Journal that Todd "delivers an engaging social history and biography," concluding that "this intimately detailed story is a historic page-turner." Women's Review of Books contributor Lauren Byrne wrote that "Todd brings the birdcage existences of aristocratic women sharply into focus." The reviewer also stated that the author "does a marvelous job of showing how the personal drama of the Kingsborough family intersected with the public events of rebellion, revealing the combination of happenstance and cross purposes that go into the making of history before hindsight and political bias tidy it up."

British novelist Jane Austen has been a topic of interest for Todd, and she has written and edited books on the author, including The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, published in 2006. In the book, Todd presents a comprehensive overview of Jane Austen's life and novels. When asked by interviewer Mark Thwaite for Ready Steady Book how she first became interested in Jane Austen, Todd replied: "I lived out of England as a child in a not very bookish household and I began by confusing Jane Austen with Jane Eyre, which I never liked. Then in my early teens in school I was made to read Northanger Abbey and with no background in the literature it was mocking did not like that either. But then I read Pride & Prejudice and fell in love."

Todd once commented to CA: "I am concerned with bringing women writers into the mainstream of English literary history and of reevaluating established literature according to a feminist perspective. I am especially interested in the period from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century because so many of our cultural attitudes were then being formed. I have recently joined a strong team of scholars of Enlightenment and Romanticism at the University of Glasgow. With them I hope to develop my interests in women writing from 1660 to 1832 within a broad framework of cultural change. I also joined a strong team of scholars in the University of Aberdeen who are interested in fiction and the development of the novel. Together, we have started the Centre for the Novel, which is dedicated to promoting the study of fiction and investigating narrative theory."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2000, Mary Carroll, review of Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life, p. 204; February 1, 2004, Patricia Monaghan, review of Daughters of Ireland: The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation, p. 946.

Contemporary Review, January, 2004, review of Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict, 1798, p. 59; February, 2004, review of The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 125.

English Historical Review, September, 2001, Mark Philp, review of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 970.

Guardian (London, England), March 21 2006, John Sutherland, "Janet Todd: A Novel Mission: John Sutherland meets Janet Todd, the English Professor Who Plans to Recover Lost British Works of Fiction."

Journal of Women's History, summer, 2004, Mary Louise Roberts, review of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 177.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2004, review of Daughters of Ireland, p. 30.

Library Journal, November 15, 1997, Thomas L. Cooksey, review of The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, p. 59; August, 2000, Patricia A. Beaber, review of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 120; February 1, 2004, Gail Benjafield, review of Daughters of Ireland, p. 107.

New York Times Book Review, February 15, 1998, Andrea Cooper, review of The Secret Life of Aphra Behn.

Publishers Weekly, November 17, 2003, review of Daughters of Ireland, p. 51.

Signs, winter, 2004, Anne K. Mellor, review of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 1719.

Women's Review of Books, Lauren Byrne, review of Daughters of Ireland, p. 8.