Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Jane Austen
-
Standard Name: Austen, Jane
Birth Name: Jane Austen
Pseudonym: A Lady
Styled: Mrs Ashton Dennis
JA
's unequalled reputation has led academic canon-makers to set her on a pedestal and scholars of early women's writing to use her as an epoch. For generations she was the first—or the only—woman to be adjudged major. Recent attention has shifted: her balance, good sense, and humour are more taken for granted, and critics have been scanning her six mature novels for traces of the boldness and irreverence which mark her juvenilia. Her two unfinished novels, her letters (which some consider an important literary text in themselves), and her poems and prayers have also received some attention.
She also provided introductions for editions of Jane Austen
's Persuasion, 1946, William Makepeace Thackeray
's The Newcomes, 1954, and Anthony Trollope
's Barchester Towers, 1958.
Textual Production
Willa Cather
In the 1920s WC
was working for a maximum of three hours a day, banishing her work from her mind during the rest of day, but keeping herself fresh for it. She said her only...
Harvey, Kathryn. "Driven by War into Politics": A Feminist Biography of Kathleen Innes. University of Alberta.
216
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published another novel conceived of as complementary to Austen
: The Youngest Miss Ward, a prequel to Mansfield Park.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Textual Production
Rebecca West
RW
produced several introductions to novels by other writers, including Jonathan Cape
's editions of Kathleen Coyle
's Liv (1929), Jane Austen
's Northanger Abbey (1932), and Sarah Orne Jewett
's The Only Rose and Other Tales (1937).
West, Rebecca. “Bibliography”. Rebecca West: A Celebration, edited by Samuel Hynes, Viking Press, pp. 761-6.
764-5
Textual Production
Sheila Kaye-Smith
With her friend G. B. Stern
, SKS
published More Talk of Jane Austen, proposed by Kaye-Smith to follow their earlier Talking of Jane Austen, 1943.
British Book News. British Council.
(1951): 52
Stern, G. B. . And did he stop and speak to you?. Henry Regnery.
Of about a dozen other books in the series, this work was the only one written by a woman about a woman writer. Royds situates Barrett Browning within a strong tradition of women writers including...
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published a pendant to yet another Austen
novel: Lady Catherine's Necklace, which foregrounds minor characters from Pride and Prejudice and adds a number of new ones.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Textual Production
Catherine Gore
In The Cabinet MinisterCG
borrowed the foundations of a plot from Jane Austen
once more, in the story of an impoverished sister and brother, Bessy and Frank Grenfell, brought up out of reluctant charity...
little book of criticism titled Jane Austen
, 1775-1817 for the British Book News series Writers and Their Work.
Staley, Thomas F., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 34. Gale Research.
34: 278
Harman, Claire. Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography. Chatto and Windus.
244-5
Textual Production
Elizabeth Jenkins
EJ
contributed an introduction to a volume, the seventh in John Lehmann
's The Chiltern Library, published in 1947 and containing two titles by Elizabeth Gaskell
. In her introduction to Thackeray
's Vanity...
Textual Features
Maria Edgeworth
The title is ironic: the protagonist is an irritating simpleton (prefiguring Austen
's Mrs Bennet), whose very funny dialogue has its roots in ME
's Essay on . . . Self-Justification.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
