Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik
When novelist Dinah Craik (1826-87) died, expressions of grief came from Lord Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, T.H. Huxley, and James Russell Lowell, among others, and even Queen Victoria picked up her pen to offer her consolation to the widower. Despite Craik’s enormous popularity throughout a literary career that spanned forty years, she is now all but forgotten. Yet, in an otherwise respectable life bookended by scandal, this was precisely the way that she wanted it.

Victorian Bestseller is the first book to relate the story of Dinah Craik’s remarkable life. Combining extensive archival work with theoretical work in disability studies and the professionalization of women’s authorship, Karen Bourrier engagingly traces the contours of this author’s life. Craik, who wrote extensively about disability in her work, was no stranger to it in her personal and professional life, marked by experiences of mental and physical disability, and the ebb and flow of health. Following scholarship in the ethics of care and disability studies, the book posits Craik as an interdependent subject, placing her within a network of writers, publishers, editors and artists, friends, and family members. Victorian Bestseller also traces the conditions in the material history of the book that allowed Victorian women writers’ careers to flourish. In doing so, the biography connects corporeality, gender, and the material history of the book to the professionalization of Victorian women’s authorship.
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Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik
When novelist Dinah Craik (1826-87) died, expressions of grief came from Lord Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, T.H. Huxley, and James Russell Lowell, among others, and even Queen Victoria picked up her pen to offer her consolation to the widower. Despite Craik’s enormous popularity throughout a literary career that spanned forty years, she is now all but forgotten. Yet, in an otherwise respectable life bookended by scandal, this was precisely the way that she wanted it.

Victorian Bestseller is the first book to relate the story of Dinah Craik’s remarkable life. Combining extensive archival work with theoretical work in disability studies and the professionalization of women’s authorship, Karen Bourrier engagingly traces the contours of this author’s life. Craik, who wrote extensively about disability in her work, was no stranger to it in her personal and professional life, marked by experiences of mental and physical disability, and the ebb and flow of health. Following scholarship in the ethics of care and disability studies, the book posits Craik as an interdependent subject, placing her within a network of writers, publishers, editors and artists, friends, and family members. Victorian Bestseller also traces the conditions in the material history of the book that allowed Victorian women writers’ careers to flourish. In doing so, the biography connects corporeality, gender, and the material history of the book to the professionalization of Victorian women’s authorship.
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Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik

Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik

by Karen Bourrier
Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik

Victorian Bestseller: The Life of Dinah Craik

by Karen Bourrier

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Overview

When novelist Dinah Craik (1826-87) died, expressions of grief came from Lord Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, T.H. Huxley, and James Russell Lowell, among others, and even Queen Victoria picked up her pen to offer her consolation to the widower. Despite Craik’s enormous popularity throughout a literary career that spanned forty years, she is now all but forgotten. Yet, in an otherwise respectable life bookended by scandal, this was precisely the way that she wanted it.

Victorian Bestseller is the first book to relate the story of Dinah Craik’s remarkable life. Combining extensive archival work with theoretical work in disability studies and the professionalization of women’s authorship, Karen Bourrier engagingly traces the contours of this author’s life. Craik, who wrote extensively about disability in her work, was no stranger to it in her personal and professional life, marked by experiences of mental and physical disability, and the ebb and flow of health. Following scholarship in the ethics of care and disability studies, the book posits Craik as an interdependent subject, placing her within a network of writers, publishers, editors and artists, friends, and family members. Victorian Bestseller also traces the conditions in the material history of the book that allowed Victorian women writers’ careers to flourish. In doing so, the biography connects corporeality, gender, and the material history of the book to the professionalization of Victorian women’s authorship.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780472131389
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 06/19/2019
Pages: 362
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Karen Bourrier is Associate Professor of English at the University of Calgary.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xv

1 Parents and Childhood, 1826 to 1839 1

2 In Her Teens, 1840 to 1845 22

3 Papers for the People, 1845 to 1849 42

4 Early Novels, 1850 to 1854 63

5 The Author of John Halifax, Gentleman, 1855 to 1858 87

6 The Family Magazine, 1859 to 1863 107

7 Two Scottish Men, 1861 to 1868 130

8 Annus Mirabilis, 1869 158

9 Motherhood, 1870 to 1879 180

10 Travel and Translation, 1867 to 1884 199

11 Later Years, 1884 to 1887 220

Epilogue: Life and Afterlife 241

Chronology 247

Manuscripts and Archival Collections 251

Notes 253

Index 317

Illustrations following page 106

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