Protest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women, 1827-1867

Front Cover
University of Wisconsin Press, 1985 - Literary Criticism - 242 pages

The social novel in nineteenth-century Britain has been considered the effort of a predominantly male canon of writers. In this ground-breaking study, Joseph Kestner challenges that assumption, arguing that it was a succession of female writers--women often meriting only a footnote in literary history--who initiated and advanced the tradition using narrative fiction to register protest, expose abuses, and promote reform.
Kestner explores the contributions to Victorian social policy by the fiction of these neglected authors (Hannah More, Elizabeth Stone, Frances Trollope, Charlotte Tonna, Camilla Toulmin, Geraldine Jewsbury, Fanny Mayne, Julia Kavanagh, Dinah Mulock Craik) as well as of more prominent female authors (Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot) and male writers (Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, G. M. W. Reynolds, John Galt, Charles Kingsley).

From inside the book

 
Page 194
... Sylvia's Lovers was noted by social reformers of the forties . Cooke Taylor cites the Athenaeum to the effect that " It was the misfortune of the factory system that it took its sudden start at the moment when the entire energies of the ...
Page 195
... Sylvia's Lovers and Felix Holt are summations of the female social novel . Brontë , Jewsbury , and Craik had already indi- cated the validity of analyzing one's own time through an earlier gen- eration . In her review of Robert Mackay's ...
Page 198
... Sylvia's Lovers . The most unusual element of the historical typology in Sylvia's Lovers is its confused chronology . By Gaskell's reckoning the story begins in 1796 , but in the first volume she miscalculates and loses two years . Thus ...

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Contents

The Early Decades
22
3
41
4
82
Copyright

1 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Protest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women, 1827-1867
Joseph A. Kestner
Limited preview - 1985
Protest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women 1827–1867
Joseph Kestner
Limited preview - 2022
Protest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women 1827-1867
Joseph Kestner
No preview available - 2022

Common terms and phrases

appeared Armstrong become believes brother called century characters Charlotte classes concerned critic decade depiction Dickens Disraeli early Eliot Elizabeth Ellen England existence fact factory father feeling Felix female Gaskell Gaskell's George girls idea important indicates industrial influence interest issues Jewsbury John labour Lady later legislation literature lives London male Manchester manufacturing March Marian marked marriage marry Martineau Mary Barton Michael mill Milliner moral mother narrative narrator nature never noted novel novelists observes period political poor present protest published reader records reform Report Review riot Ruth Shirley shows situation social fiction social novel society South Stone story strike suffering tale tells things tion Tonna trade transition Trollope University Victorian William Langshawe Withers woman women workers writers Wrongs Young Milliner

References to this book

About the author (1985)

John Kestner is professor of English at the University of Tulsa. He studied at Columbia University, where he was a President's Fellow. He is author of The Spatiality of the Novel, as well as many essays in a variety of scholarly journals, including Poétique.

Bibliographic information

TitleProtest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women, 1827-1867
AuthorJoseph A. Kestner
PublisherUniversity of Wisconsin Press, 1985
Original fromthe University of Michigan
Digitized4 Mar 2008
ISBN029910060X, 9780299100605
Length242 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
Literary Criticism / General
Literary Criticism / Women Authors
  
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