Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Geraldine Jewsbury
-
Standard Name: Jewsbury, Geraldine
Birth Name: Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury
During her life, Geraldine Jewsbury
wrote six novels and two books for children. Widely published in Victorian periodicals, she was a respected reviewer, editor, and translator. Her periodical publications ranged from theatre reviews, short fiction, and children's literature to articles on social issues and religion. GJ
greatly influenced the Victorian publishing industry and public taste through her position as reviewer for the Athenæum and her role as reader for publishers Richard Bentley and Son
and Hurst and Blackett
.
Virginia Woolf
declared in Geraldine
and Jane (in The Second Common Reader) that JWC
's letters owe their incomparable brilliancy to the hawk-like swoop and descent of her mind upon facts.
Woolf, Virginia, and Virginia Woolf. “Geraldine and Jane”. The Second Common Reader, Hogarth Press, pp. 186-01.
198
Literary responses
Eliza Lynn Linton
Geraldine Jewsbury
, reviewing this novel for the Athenæum, was none too complimentary. She thought the author had offered an ineffective sermon on this excellent moral: clever, as anything she writes is likely to...
Literary responses
Georgiana Craik
Geraldine Jewsbury
's review of My First Journal was damning. This, she stated, was by no means a book for the young, such as we should wish any young people of our own to take...
Literary responses
Matilda Betham-Edwards
The Athenæum, which in later years was often a less than generous commentator on MBE
's work, gave Now or Never the first of its truly crushing responses. Geraldine Jewsbury
, writing anonymously, began,...
Literary responses
Sophie Veitch
Geraldine Jewsbury
's review in the Athenæum praised the novel, while it surprisingly downplayed its exciting aspects, arguing that it does not degenerate into anything morbid or sensational. She found it interesting and the subject...
Literary responses
Rosina Bulwer Lytton, Baroness Lytton
Jewsbury
gave Behind the Scenes an unfavourable review in the Athenæum for alleged dullness, malignity, and vulgarity.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1381 (1854): 460
She claimed that its ingrained coarseness manifests itself from the beginning to the end
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1381 (1854): 460
Literary responses
Camilla Crosland
Geraldine Jewsbury
gave Mrs. Blake a positive review in the Athenæum. She suggested that Mrs. Crosland's mind seems to have matured within the last year or two, and there is a repose and simplicity...
Literary responses
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Geraldine Jewsbury
in the Athenæum saw considerable promise in the book, but blamed it for verging on a treatment of incest which ought to be . . . inadmissable for a novel.
Shankman, Lillian F., and Anne Thackeray Ritchie. “Biographical Commentary and Notes”. Anne Thackeray Ritchie: Journals and Letters, edited by Abigail Burnham Bloom et al., Ohio State University Press, p. various pages.
67
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
Geraldine Jewsbury
simultaneously praised and criticised MH
, claiming that the novel contained graceful thoughts and good sentiments scattered through this story, making us feel that the author is wiser than her book.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1992 (1865): 920
Literary responses
Augusta Webster
Dramatic Studies as a whole was acclaimed by reviewers. A reviewer in the Westminster Review of October 1866 wrote that Mrs. Webster shows not only originality, but what is nearly as rare, trained intellect and...
Literary responses
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Geraldine Jewsbury
in the Athenæum found Eleanor's Victory inferior to Lady Audley's Secret or Aurora Floyd. She regretted that MEB
had succumbed to the taste for excitement and novelty and thus bartered for the...
Literary responses
Florence Marryat
Geraldine Jewsbury
, reviewing this novel for the Athenæum, made no attempt to hide her irritation with it. She observed that the ideas of women on points of morals and ethics seem in a...
Literary responses
Emma Robinson
Geraldine Jewsbury
reviewed it for the Athenæum.
Literary responses
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Geraldine Jewsbury
's Athenæum review praised the author's dramatic abilities and her convincing dialogue.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1982 (1865): 537
Publishing
George Eliot
The first number of the Westminster Review to appear under her anonymous (and unpaid) editorship was that of January 1852, which was also the first under John Chapman
's ownership. One of her own contributions...
