Women's Literature in the 19th Century: Further Reading

views updated

WOMEN'S LITERATURE IN THE 19TH CENTURY: FURTHER READING

Ardis, Ann L. "The Controversy over Realism in Fiction, 1885-1895." In New Women, New Novels: Feminism and Early Modernism, pp. 29-58. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

Analyzes the condescension that typically marked the critical review of novels written by women authors in the late nineteenth century.

Bauer, Dale M., and Philip Gould, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 366 p.

Collection of essays on a range of issues related to the literary production of nineteenth-century American women writers, much of it focused on their reformist rhetoric.

Bernstein, Susan David. Confessional Subjects: Revelations of Gender and Power in Victorian Literature and Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997, 206 p.

Study of the thematic concerns of gender and power in confessional literature of the Victorian era.

Bloom, Harold, ed. British Women Fiction Writers of the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999, 160 p.

Collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century reviews and critical essays on the literary works of eleven nineteenth-century British authors, including the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Harriet Martineau, Mary Shelley, and Frances Trollope.

Burke, Sally. American Feminist Playwrights: A Critical History. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1996, 270 p.

Study of early American feminist playwrights, including chapters on nineteenth-century dramatic works that depicted the oppressive nature of patriarchal customs and laws.

Coultrap-McQuin, Susan. Doing Literary Business: American Women Writers in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill, N. C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990, 253 p.

Examines the literary careers of E.D.E.N Southworth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Abigail Dodge, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps as a representative sample of how American women writers forged literary careers from 1840 to 1900, a period of rapidly increasing female authorship.

Finch, Alison. Women's Writing in Nineteenth-Century France. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 336 p.

Study of French women authors of the nineteenth century; includes chapters on the increasing social and political activism in their writings.

Fleischner, Jennifer. Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family, and Identity in Women's Slave Narratives. New York: New York University Press, 1996, 232 p.

Examination of the psychological strategies used by former slave women to represent and remember their lives in their narratives.

Foster, Frances Smith. Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746-1892. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993, 194 p.

Analysis of the literary output and thematic concerns of African American women writers from 1746 to the end of the nineteenth century.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979, 770 p.

Concentrates on representations of women in literature and the feminist response to patriarchal attitudes in the works of Jane Austen, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Emily Dickinson.

——, eds. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996, 2441 p.

Includes lengthy section on the literature of numerous nineteenth-century women, notably Margaret Fuller, Fanny Fern, Rebecca Harding Davis, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, and Mary Austin.

Gorsky, Susan Rubinow. Femininity to Feminism: Women and Literature in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992, 209 p.

Full-length study of the relationship between women's growing demands for social, economic, and political opportunities during the nineteenth century and the literature they wrote.

Grasso, Linda M. The Artistry of Anger: Black and White Women's Literature in America, 1820-1860. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002, 264 p.

Full-length study of the anger expressed by black and white American women authors that the critic claims was a response to their exclusion from the failed promises of democratic America and their inability to express their outrage overtly.

Hamilton, Susan. "Locating Victorian Feminism: Frances Power Cobbe, Feminist Writing, and the Periodical Press." Nineteenth-Century Feminisms 2 (spring-summer 2000): 67-78.

Describes the feminist essays of the British social critic Frances Power Cobbe, who, it is argued, has not received literary recognition as a pioneering feminist because nearly all her work was published in the periodical press.

——. "Making History with Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminism, Domestic Violence, and the Language of Imperialism." Victorian Studies 43, no. 3 (spring 2001): 437-60.

Argues that the careful reconsideration of the trope of imperialism that runs throughout Cobbe's 1878 "Wife Torture in England" is helpful in recognizing how Cobbe's feminist periodical connected to mainstream British audiences of her day.

Herndl, Diane Price. "The Threat of Invalidism: Responsibility and Reward in Domestic and Feminist Fiction." In Invalid Women: Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and Culture, 1840-1940, pp. 43-74. Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Argues that the centrality of sickly women in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, E.D.E.N. South-worth's Retribution, and Laura J. Curtis Bullard's Christine show that even these authors were unsure how to reconcile the strength of women that they espoused with the stereotypical image of helpless female invalids common in the literature of the nineteenth century.

Hoeveler, Diane Long. Gothic Feminism: The Professionalization of Gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, 272 p.

Study of the connection between feminism and Gothic literature in the work of writers such as Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters.

Hoffman, Nicole Tonkovich. "Legacy Profile: Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1874)." Legacy 7, no. 2 (fall 1990): 47-54.

Seeks to reestablish the reputation of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of The Ladies' Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book, as an important advocate for women's rights, especially in the areas of education and property rights.

Jump, Harriet Devine, ed. Women's Writing of the Victorian Period 1837-1901: An Anthology. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1999, 384 p.

Collection of writings by nineteenth-century British women, many of which express feminist sentiments and advocacy of social, political, and legal reforms.

Kilcup, Karen L., ed. Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers: A Critical Reader. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 1998, 240 p.

Collection of essays about the literary works of numerous American women authors of the nineteenth century.

Knight, Denise D., ed. Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997, 251 p.

Offers biographical-critical overviews of 79 American women authors.

Logan, Shirley Wilson. "We Are Coming": The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999, 255 p.

Studies race and gender concerns of black women authors and reform leaders of the nineteenth century.

Mattingly, Carol. Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998, 256 p.

Studies the historical context and rhetorical language in the second half of the nineteenth century used to advocate temperance.

——. Appropriate[ing] Dress: Women's Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth-Century America. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002, 192 p.

Analyzes the connections between the restrictive clothing required of nineteenth-century women and how a number of female speakers used their attire to challenge the patriarchal hierarchy.

Michie, Elsie B. Outside the Pale: Cultural Exclusion, Gender Difference, and the Victorian Woman Writer. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993, 224 p.

Analysis of the representation of women in nineteenth-century literature and how the works of Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and the Brontës responded to the connection between gender and questions of politics, class, and economics.

Morgan, Thais, E., ed. Victorian Sages and Cultural Discourse: Renegotiating Gender and Power. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990, 330 p.

Collection of essays dealing with various issues related to representations of gender in writing of the Victorian era.

Noble, Marianne. "An Ecstasy of Apprehension: The Gothic Pleasures of Sentimental Fiction." In American Gothic: New Interventions in a National Narrative, edited by Robert K. Martin & Eric Savoy, pp. 163-82. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1998.

Concentrates on feminist themes of repressive gender construction, nullification of the female body, sexuality, and violence in the sentimental gothic fiction of nineteenth-century women authors.

Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. "The Popular Fiction of Caroline Sheridan Norton: The Woman Question and the Theme of Manipulation." Studies in Popular Culture 9, no. 2 (1986): 24-40.

Argues that the poetry, short stories, and novels of Caroline Sheridan Norton are worthy of scholarly attention for their thematic treatment of women as objects of property and male manipulation as well as their forward-thinking refusal to portray women as passive and weak.

Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977, 378 p.

Full-length study of literary hallmarks, thematic concerns, and aesthetic sensibilities of British women novelists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Simson, Rennie. "Afro-American Poets of the Nineteenth Century." In Nineteenth-Century Women Writers of the English-Speaking World, edited by Rhoda B. Nathan, pp. 275. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Collection of essays covering a broad range of issues related to the literary output of English and American women authors of the nineteenth century.

Sizer, Lyde Cullen. The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the Civil War. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000, 348 p.