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.
FT
's rambunctious widow was greatly admired by both her male and female readership. Even the Athenæum, which was usually unsupportive of her work, offered a positive review: [s]o frequently has it been our...
Literary Setting
Fanny Aikin Kortright
While Annie is employed by the Curzon family, love develops between her and Lord Claude Douglas. He wishes he could forget who he is for her sake, but cannot do it. He sullies their pastoral...
Material Conditions of Writing
E. M. Delafield
In the year of this publication, 1935, Virginia Woolf
wrote to her niece, Angelica Bell
, I've been seeing E. M. Delafield who writes The Provincial Lady: she is called Dashwood really; Elizabeth Dashwood; and...
Material Conditions of Writing
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
This venture was triggered by the appearance on the market of Austen
's juvenile play Sir Charles Grandison, itself an adaptation from the novel by Samuel Richardson
. London Weekend Television
acquired an option...
Singh, G., and Q. D. Leavis. F.R. Leavis: A Literary Biography. Duckworth.
283-4
Occupation
Sarah Tytler
As regards the typical feminine curriculum, ST
resented the tradition of mandatory music teaching—of the piano—to young women, and the slight to other branches of education in the extravagant favour shown to one branch.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray.
235-6
Occupation
Elizabeth Jenkins
EJ
was one of the founders of the Jane Austen Society
, launched in 1940. She campaigned for the purchase (achieved in 1947) of the cottage at Chawton in Hampshire where Austen
lived for her...
This work gave her considerable free time, most of which she spent reading such authors as Austen
, Johnson
, Scott
, and Trollope
. She particularly admired the forms of Mansfield
's published scrapbook...
Occupation
Lady Cynthia Asquith
Meanwhile she prepared to receive evacuees from London, and volunteered for first aid work, nursing, and night shifts with the ARP (Air Raid Precaution)
.
For her three weeks' work in this capacity she earned £900. She did even better in spring 1957 by appearing on an ITV
quiz programme, the $64,000 Question, to answer questions on the novels...
Occupation
Catherine Hutton
As well as collecting illustrations of costume, CH
was an early collector of autographs. (She began both these collections at a young age, but presumably had to start again from scratch after her losses in...
Performance of text
Aldous Huxley
Austen
's Pride and Prejudice was released in the USA by MGM
as a Hollywood film, with screenplay by AH
and others.
Parker, Peter, editor. A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers. Oxford University Press.
357
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). http://www.imdb.com.
Performance of text
Elizabeth Inchbald
It was published by the end of the year, at the same time as a rival version by Stephen Porter
which used both titles (Lovers' Vows; or, The Child of Love) and which...
Performance of text
Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
Genlis' daughters gave performances of these plays to large audiences (up to five hundred people).
Dow, Gillian. “Books owned by Jane Austen’s niece, Caroline, donated to Chawton House Library”. The Female Spectator, Vol.
1 n.s.
, No. 4, pp. 1-3.
2
The work was several times translated into English (beginning in late 1780) as The Theatre of Education. A...