Women's Life Writing, 1700-1850: Gender, Genre and Authorship

by D. Cook (Editor), A. Culley (Editor)

Overview

This collection discusses British and Irish life writings by women in the period 1700-1850. It argues for the importance of women's life writing as part of the culture and practice of eighteenth-century and Romantic auto/biography, exploring the complex relationships between constructions of femininity, life writing forms and models of authorship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230343078
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	06/29/2012
Edition description:	2012
Pages:	253
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

JENNIE BATCHELOR Reader in Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Kent, UK LAURA DAVIES Research Fellow at the Centre for Christianity and Culture, University of Oxford, UK CATHERINE DELAFIELD Independent Scholar, UK GILLIAN DOW Lecturer in English, University of Southampton, UK ISOBEL GRUNDY Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta, Canada FELICITY JAMES Lecturer in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth -Century Literature, University of Leicester, UK FELICITY A. NUSSBAUM Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA, USA PETER SABOR Professor of English, McGill University, Canada SHARON M. SETZER Professor of English, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA MARY L. SPONBERG Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University, Australia

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Contributors viii

Introduction: Gender, Genre and Authorship Daniel Cook Amy Culley 1

1 The Air of a Romance: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Constructs Her Life Isobel Grundy 9

2 Barrett Writing Burney: A Life among the Footnotes Catherine Delafield 26

3 An Authoress to Be Let: Reading Laetitia Pilkington's Memoirs Daniel Cook 39

4 Sociability and Life Writing: Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi Felicity A. Nussbaum 55

5 Journal Letters and Scriblerations: Frances Burney's Life Writing in Paris Peter Sabor 71

6 A Model for the British Fair? French Women's Life Writing in Britain, 1680-1830 Gillian Dow 86

7 Autobiographical Time and the Spiritual 'Lives' of Early Methodist Women Laura Davies 103

8 Writing Female Biography: Mary Hays and the Life Writing of Religious Dissent Felicity James 117

9 'Prying into the Recesses of History': Women Writers and the Court Memoir Amy Culley 133

10 The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson: A Courtesan's Byronic Self-Fashioning Sharon M. Setzer 150

11 Remembering Wollstonecraft: Feminine Friendship, Female Subjectivity and the 'Invention' of the Feminist Heroine Mary L. Spongberg 165

12 Jane Austen and Charlotte Smith: Biography, Autobiography and the Writing of Women's Literary History Jennie Batchelor 181

Notes 197

Select Bibliography 239

Index 244

Editorial Reviews

"This is an ambitious and very attractive volume on a topic very much at the cutting edge of research in the 18th and 19th century, which will be widely reviewed and, I am sure, added to the list of essential reading for women's writing courses and life writing courses." Cora Kaplan, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Southampton, UK

"These analyses of life writings - secular and spiritual, conservative and rebellious - will be valuable to literary scholars interested in genre creation and historians using autobiographical material." Recommended by Choice

"Space precludes mentioning all twelve essays, but they are all fine pieces of scholarship. It is to the credit of the editors, Cook

and Culley, and all the contributors that the chapters so consistently and productively speak to each other. Women's Life Writing

will undoubtedly become an important model and guide for future scholarship in the field." Melanie Bigold, SHARP News

From the Publisher