Becoming a Woman of Letters:
Myths of Authorship and Facts of the Victorian Market
Linda H. Peterson

Cloth | 2009 | $35.00 / £24.95
308 pp. | 6 x 9 | 28 halftones.

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During the nineteenth century, women authors for the first time achieved professional status, secure income, and public fame. How did these women enter the literary profession; meet the demands of editors, publishers, booksellers, and reviewers; and achieve distinction as "women of letters"? Becoming a Woman of Letters examines the various ways women writers negotiated the market realities of authorship, and looks at the myths and models women writers constructed to elevate their place in the profession.

Drawing from letters, contracts, and other archival material, Linda Peterson details the careers of various women authors from the Victorian period. Some, like Harriet Martineau, adopted the practices of their male counterparts and wrote for periodicals before producing a best seller; others, like Mary Howitt and Alice Meynell, began in literary partnerships with their husbands and pursued independent careers later in life; and yet others, like Charlotte Brontë, and her successors Charlotte Riddell and Mary Cholmondeley, wrote from obscure parsonages or isolated villages, hoping an acclaimed novel might spark a meteoric rise to fame. Peterson considers these women authors' successes and failures--the critical esteem that led to financial rewards and lasting reputations, as well as the initial successes undermined by publishing trends and pressures.

Exploring the burgeoning print culture and the rise of new genres available to Victorian women authors, this book provides a comprehensive account of the flowering of literary professionalism in the nineteenth century.

Linda H. Peterson is the Niel Gray, Jr. Professor of English at Yale University. Her books include Victorian Women's Autobiography: The Poetics and Politics of Life Writing.

Endorsements:

"Written in transparently lucid prose, this book offers a deeply informed, evenhanded assessment of the several models of female authorship that circulated from the 1830s to the 1890s. The book deftly shows how Victorian myths of female authorship both emerged and diverged from the professional biographies of these women of letters."--Rosemarie Bodenheimer, Boston College

"Becoming a Woman of Letters makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the nineteenth-century literary marketplace and of how women located themselves within the emerging profession of authorship. Elegant and engagingly written, this book will appeal to readers with an interest in the history of authorship, in the periodical press, and in women's writing."--Hilary Fraser, Birbeck College, University of London

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The Nineteenth-Century Profession of Letters and the Woman Author 13
Chapter 2: Inventing the Woman of Letters: Harriet Martineau in the Literary Marketplace of the 1820s and 1830s 61
Chapter 3: Working Collaboratively: Mary Howitt and Anna Mary Howitt as Women of Letters 96
Chapter 4: Parallel Currents: The Life of Charlotte Bronte as Mid-Victorian Myth of Women's Authorship 131
Chapter 5: Challenging Brontëan Myths of Authorship: Charlotte Riddell and A Struggle for Fame (1883) 151
Chapter 6: Transforming the Poet: Alice Meynell as Fin-de-Sie`cle Englishwoman of Letters 171
Chapter 7: The Woman of Letters and the New Woman: Reinventing Mary Cholmondeley 207
Notes 225
Index 281

Subject Areas:

• American Language and Literature
• British Literature
• Gender Studies

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Cloth: $35.00 ISBN13: 978-0-691-14017-9

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Cloth: £24.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-14017-9

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File created: 11/4/2009

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