Villains, Victims, and Violets: Agency and Feminism in the Original Sherlock Holmes Canon
338
Villains, Victims, and Violets: Agency and Feminism in the Original Sherlock Holmes Canon
338Paperback
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Overview
Modern writers have reconsidered every subject under the sun through the lens of Sherlock Holmes. The overlooked subject is agency: the opportunities available to these women for independence and control. What we find all too often are the silences around them. And yet, these clients--villains, victims, and Violets--are pivotal in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps more enigmatic than Holmes' methods is what Watson sees: the woman in the shadows. Whether lady or lady's maid, if she does speak, it's often not recorded in her words. That was life for half the population of Victorian England. A woman's role was written before she was born; it merely required her to don the starched white apron of a maid, or the rough, stained skirts of a "char"--who did the dirtiest of household jobs--or the fine silk gowns of a lady. Enter Villains, Victims, and Violets to spy and report on these women in their darkest, most vulnerable moments. How does Irene Adler--pursued by a powerful king, and by Sherlock Holmes--outwit them both? Can Lady Hilda conceal the secret that only Holmes unravels? When Violet Hunter takes the last job offered before she loses everything, can Holmes free her and her doppelganger? To understand Holmes' world is to gaze unsparingly into the lives of its women: the villains and what drives them astray; the victims Holmes races to rescue; and the Violets, who make up the strongest characters from Holmes' unforgettable cases. The authors pull back the curtain on their private spaces, revealing their "proper" place in a man's world at the dusk of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th. Foreword by Nisi Shawl, noted Sherlockian and the James Tiptree Jr. Award-winning and Nebula-nominated author of the brilliant steampunk, feminist, Afrofuturist novel Everfair.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781627347266 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brown Walker Press |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2019 |
| Series: | A Studious Scarlets Society Anthology |
| Pages: | 338 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.76(d) |
About the Author
Tamara R. Bower is an editor, a journalist, and an author whose essay about the amity of Holmes and Watson in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" was included in the Sherlockian anthology, About Sixty: Why Every Sherlock Holmes Story is the Best.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Nisi Shawl ix
Introduction by Tamara R. Bower and Resa Haile xiii
I. Are Women Persons in the Victorian Era?
Unable to Save Herself: An Examination of Women as
Persons in Three Stories of the Sherlock Holmes Canon 3
Vicki Delany
Laura Lyons: Hounded by Victorian Ideals 13
Nicole Givens Kurtz
“Ladies’ Fancies Must Be Consulted”: The Women of
“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” 19
Resa Haile
“She Blessed the Hand”: The Case of the Defiant Daughter 29
Sonia Fetherston
Mary Morstan: The Victim Who Refuses 35
Michelle Birkby
A Powerful Victim: Mrs. Ferguson in “The Adventure of
the Sussex Vampire” 43
Lucy Blue
Never Knock Opportunity: Motive, Means, and Opportunity
in “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” 49
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
The Bird Escaped: Myth in The Hound of the Baskervilles 55
Molly Carr
Mary Sutherland Under Sail 63
Leah Guinn
II. Examining Female Characters’ Need and Capacity
for Subterfuge
“A Matter of Love and Trust”: Subterfuge as Self-Defense
Among Women of the Canon 71
Jaime N. Mahoney
Thor Bridge in Gaslight: The Education of Miss Grace Dunbar 77
Leah Guinn
In Which Effie Munro Fulfills Her Own Prophecy 83
Emma Jane Holloway
Marriage à la Mode: The Adventure of the Bolting Bride 93
Diane Gilbert Madsen
“In a World of Foxes”: The Double Disappearance of Lady
Frances Carfax 105
Liz Hedgecock
More Than What He Made Her: Kitty Winter and the Rise of
the Fallen Woman in “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” 119
Beth L. Gallego
“A Benevolent or Malevolent Agency”: Beryl Stapleton and
Laura Lyons in The Hound of the Baskervilles 129
Tracy J. Revels
III. An Interlude
Lady Hilda Revealed : A Retelling of “The Adventure
of the Second Stain” 141
Bonnie MacBird
IV. Restrictions and Allowances for Women in the
Most Important Matters: Love and Marriage
“I Am Not the Law”: Limits and Expansions for Women’s
Agency in the Sherlock Holmes Canon 161
Sylvia Kelso
Transgressions: Scandal in the Canon 173
Liese Sherwood-Fabre
The Accidental Murderess: Not Quite a Person,
Not Quite a Killer 183
Tamara R. Bower
“The Lady Was a Charming Correspondent”: Chivalry,
Cigars, and the Avenging Angel of “The Adventure of
Charles Augustus Milverton” 195
Mary Platt
Unapologetically Powerful: The Woman 209
Angela Misri
The Deadly Love of Maria Gibson 219
Jayantika Ganguly
Flora Millar: Precepts and Assumptions of the Danseuse 229
Abbey Pen Baker
The Veiled Detective 235
Michelle Birkby
Still Waters Run Deviant: The Scheming Librarian 243
Liese Sherwood-Fabre
V. An Examination of Women’s Ability for Choice
and Control in Crisis
A Canonical Lady’s Guide to Defense Against
Abuse and Blackmail 253
Katie Magnusson
Violet Smith: Almost the Heroine She Deserved to Be 259
Jennifer Petkus
Walking After You: Female Agency and the Male Gaze
in the Sherlock Holmes Stories 267
Hannah Drew
Betraying the Sisterhood: The Women of Thor Bridge 275
Geri Schear
A Winter’s Tale: How Kitty Winter Transcends the Stereotype
of a Wronged Woman to Become a Heroic Avenger 285
Charlotte Anne Walters
The Woman Who Beat Him: The Maid, the Governess,
or the Landlady 293
Amy Thomas
Bibliography 305
Index 311