Helen Debenham

Standard Name: Debenham, Helen

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Jessie Fothergill
JF 's father, a former Quaker , was cast out by the Society of Friends when he married an Anglican wife.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Scholar Helen Debenham notes, citing correspondence with Ian Fell , who is writing a...
Family and Intimate relationships Jessie Fothergill
Although not as well known or successful as JF , her younger sister Caroline Fothergill published at least eight novels between 1883 and 1897, including Put to the Proof (1883), A Question of Degree (1896)...
Literary responses Jessie Fothergill
The subject-matter led one reviewer to comment that JFdoes not deal with the most agreeable of subjects.
Gardiner, Linda. “Jessie Fothergill’s Novels”. Novel Review, Vol.
1
, No. 1, 1892, pp. 153-60.
159
Helen Debenham observes that while JF never abandons her social concerns, the emphasis shifts as she...
Literary responses Jessie Fothergill
Helen Debenham notes that the social issues and emotional situations that interested JF did not lend themselves easily to serialisation or to the demands of the triple decker. In any case, a novelist who does...
Publishing Jessie Fothergill
It was reprinted in one volume with an author's preface and reclassified as Healey, A Tale in 1884. In the preface to the reprint, JF makes no reference to the extensive revisions, stating only that...
Textual Features Jessie Fothergill
Scholar Helen Debenham argues that it disconcertingly revises Charlotte Yonge and upsets expected patterns of response
Debenham, Helen. “’Almost always two sides to a question’: the novels of Jessie Fothergill”. Popular Victorian Women Writers, edited by Kay Boardman and Shirley Jones, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 66-89.
73
by revising a familiar story of renunciation and moral reward.
Travel Jessie Fothergill
JF probably made the first of her visits to Germany, culminating in a fifteen-month stay in Düsseldorf with her sister Caroline and two friends.
Accounts differ on the timing of the trips. The Oxford Dictionary...

Timeline

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Texts

Debenham, Helen. “’Almost always two sides to a question’: the novels of Jessie Fothergill”. Popular Victorian Women Writers, edited by Kay Boardman and Shirley Jones, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 66-89.