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.
MD
made her journalism debut early. In 1967 she wrote in the Guardian about the accomplishment of the sexual revolution brought about by the contraceptive pill. It was a major component of women's liberation, she...
Textual Production
Georgette Heyer
GH
's next Regency romance, Bath Tangle (set in a place whose very name evokes Jane Austen
), features another heroine who needs special permission to marry.
Hodge, Jane Aiken. The Private World of Georgette Heyer. Bodley Head.
116, 209
Textual Production
Joan Aiken
JA
published Eliza's Daughter, which ties in with and continues Jane Austen
's Sense and Sensibility, by relating the story of Colonel Brandon's mysterious ward.
“Joan Aiken”. Fantastic Fiction.
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
P. D. James
James felt that detective stories offer far more detailed and realistic portraits of the way life was lived in the period of their writing than do many novels: Because the detective story is usually set...
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
Patricia Beer
PB
's Reader, I Married Him: A Study of the Women Characters of Jane Austen
, Charlotte Brontë
, Elizabeth Gaskell
, and George Eliot was a harbinger of serious critical interest in the women's literary tradition.
Sherry, Vincent B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 40. Gale Research.
25
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Brigid Brophy
Some items are reprinted from Don't Never Forget, including a piece on Jane Austen
, fiercely condemnatory of her cult following (which BB
finds demeaning and condescending), which concludes with unreserved praise: I think...
On the topic of Jane Austen
's first accepting, then rejecting, the proposal of Harris Bigg-Wither
, CH
wrote that the acceptance must have been given in a momentary fit of self-delusion, and that Jane...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Susan Ferrier
SF
's letters deal mainly with day-to-day occurrences, but her literary opinons are always worth having. She comments on several works by Lady Charlotte Campbell (later Bury)
. Reading Austen
's Emma in 1816 (the...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Lady Margaret Sackville
Austen
, she says, was the first really modern novelist . . . more modern in a sense than Dickens
or Thackeray
.
Austen, Jane. “Introduction”. Jane Austen, edited by Lady Margaret Sackville, Herbert & Daniel, p. ix - xvi.
xi
This publication, together with the anthology, suggests that LMS
was pursuing...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Augusta Webster
She omits reviews from this collection, but provides readers with an opportunity to consider literary topics. The Translation of Poetry argues that because [i]n poetry the form of the thought is part of the thought...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Vernon Lee
In her first essay, Lee offers a summary analysis of the English novelistic tradition. Judging them especially, though not entirely, on their treatments of morality, she evaluates writers including Jane Austen
, Maria Edgeworth
,...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anna Margaretta Larpent
This later diary, generally written daily at any odd moment, provides indexing of special events which reveals AML
's methodical character. Occasional months are missing here and there. The diarist offers penetrating comment on a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
John Oliver Hobbes
JOH
sometimes discusses her own writing, career, and ambition: One's place in literature is a possession—never a concession. And one knows one's place. I don't wish to be judged—one way or the other—till I am...
