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.
BP
was a distinguished, understatedly comic novelist of the twentieth century, whose autobiographical writings (diaries, letters, and notebooks) were published only after her death.
Wyatt-Brown, Anne M. Barbara Pym: A Critical Biography. University of Missouri Press.
1-2, 9
Pym, Barbara. “Editorial Materials”. A Very Private Eye, edited by Hazel Holt and Hilary Pym, Macmillan, p. various pages.
xiii-xiv
Having achieved moderate success during her early career...
Occupation
Barbara Pym
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...
Literary responses
Barbara Pym
BP
's father wrote to her on 3 May 1950 commending this novel, which he had not expected to enjoy since he preferred mysteries.
Wyatt-Brown, Anne M. Barbara Pym: A Critical Biography. University of Missouri Press.
157n12
Robert Liddell
, who had been familiar with it throughout...
Literary responses
Barbara Pym
The sales of this second novel nearly doubled those of Pym's first: Excellent Women sold 5,477 copies in the two months to June 1952, while Some Tame Gazelle sold only 3,722 in the thirteen years...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ann Radcliffe
This novel marks AR
's first big success. It drew widespread critical acclaim.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
83
The Critical Review praised it and likened the author to Clara Reeve
(while making an issue of the fact that, though...
Literary responses
Ann Radcliffe
AR
's rival M. G. Lewis
finished reading Udolpho within ten days of its publication, though he had during the same time travelled from England to the Hague.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
Nearly seventy, ER
volunteered for war work herself, and despatched her car (which she called Jane Austen after the novelist and the Austin
make of car) for active service.
Johnson, Richard William. “Associated Prigs”. London Review of Books, pp. 19-21.
21
Textual Production
Dorothy Richardson
In her correspondence Richardson addresses a great range of topics, including her own varied reading. She comments on women writers from Julian of Norwich
through Jane Austen
, Emily
and Charlotte Brontë
, George Eliot
Intertextuality and Influence
Samuel Richardson
Innumerable women novelists later conducted a dialogue (some admiring, some rebutting or revising) with SR
. Few could ignore his influence completely. Frances Brooke
wrote his biography; Anna Letitia Barbauld
edited his letters, and Jane Austen
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Rigby
In 1849, ER
's friend Sara Coleridge
called her the most brilliant woman of the day . . . . She is thoroughly feminine, like that princess of novelists, Jane Austen
.
Coleridge, Sara. Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge. Editor Coleridge, Edith, Henry S. King.
Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, Vol.
2
, pp. 285-7.
289
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
The previously published essays include pieces on Austen
and Landseer
, and the early Toilers and Spinsters.
Textual Features
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR
wrote frequently on lesser-known female writers. The collected essays in From an Island include, in addition to the piece on Austen
, one on Heroines and Their Grandmothers which contrasts the cheerful heroines of...
Textual Production
Michèle Roberts
In November 2011 MR
edited Wooing Mr Wickham, a collection of stories inspired by Jane Austen
or by Chawton House.
Roberts also selected the stories for this volume from those submitted to the...
Textual Features
Regina Maria Roche
Jane Austen
's Emma (in which this novel is mentioned) seems to have picked up some trifles from its plot. Roche's Marlowe hides his love for the impoverished Fanny because of his dependence on his...
