Mistress of the House: Women of Property in the Victorian NovelThis exploration of gender and property ownership in eight important novels argues that property is a decisive undercurrent in narrative structures and modes, as well as an important gender signature in society and culture. Tim Dolin suggests that the formal development of nineteenth-century domestic fiction can only be understood in the context of changes in the theory and laws of property: indeed femininity and its representation cannot be considered separately from property relations and their reform. He presents original readings of novels in which a woman owns, acquires or loses property, focusing on exchanges between patriarchal cultural authority, the 'woman question' and narrative form, and on the place of domestic fiction in a culture in which property relations and gender relations are subject to radical review. Each chapter revolves around a representative text, but refers substantially to other material, both other novels and contemporary social, legal, political and feminist commentary. |
From inside the book
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... Diana of the Crossways Appendix 1 Barbara Bodichon: A brief summary of the laws concerning women (1854) Appendix 2 The Caroline Norton affair Bibliography Index The Nineteenth Century General Editors' Preface The aim of this.
... Diana of the Crossways Appendix 1 Barbara Bodichon: A brief summary of the laws concerning women (1854) Appendix 2 The Caroline Norton affair Bibliography Index The Nineteenth Century General Editors' Preface The aim of this.
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... Diana of the Crossways ( 1885 ) bound and define the argument . Shirley was published just in advance of the property debates , and in its engagement with the language of the Victorian ' woman question ' ( already well established ) ...
... Diana of the Crossways ( 1885 ) bound and define the argument . Shirley was published just in advance of the property debates , and in its engagement with the language of the Victorian ' woman question ' ( already well established ) ...
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... Diana Merion's impassioned protest in Diana of the Crossways — that '"Women are women, and I am a woman, but I am I, and unlike them"' (Meredith, 1910a, p.259) — echoes through the novels.
... Diana Merion's impassioned protest in Diana of the Crossways — that '"Women are women, and I am a woman, but I am I, and unlike them"' (Meredith, 1910a, p.259) — echoes through the novels.
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... Diana of the Crossways) the most outspoken in its protest against the subjection of women. In this novel Charlotte Brontë attempts to resolve the problem by casting a female property-owner in a novel centrally concerned with the ...
... Diana of the Crossways) the most outspoken in its protest against the subjection of women. In this novel Charlotte Brontë attempts to resolve the problem by casting a female property-owner in a novel centrally concerned with the ...
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... Diana of the Crossways (1885), it was George Meredith's aim to transform the sensation heroine into the heroine of a philosophical social comedy. In Diana it is the 'woman with brains', Irish-born, who is the foreigner: 'A quick-witted ...
... Diana of the Crossways (1885), it was George Meredith's aim to transform the sensation heroine into the heroine of a philosophical social comedy. In Diana it is the 'woman with brains', Irish-born, who is the foreigner: 'A quick-witted ...
Contents
Shirley | |
Cranford and its belongings | |
Villette | |
The Moonstone | |
Hardys uncovered women | |
Diana of the Crossways | |
A brief summary of the laws | |
The Caroline Norton affair | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
argues Barbara Bodichon becomes Betteredge Bretton Brontë Caroline Celt chapter character Charlotte Brontë Collins comedy comic conflict conventional coverture Cranford Cranfordians critical Crossways culture debates Diana divorce domestic earnings England English female feminine feminist figure Gaskell Gaskell's gender Gillian Beer Hardy Hardy's Helsinger Helstone heroine heroine's Hintock household husband ideology imagination independent Irish Jane Eyre Jude Jude the Obscure Jude's ladies landed landscape language live London Lucy Lucy's marriage married women's property Mary Meredith middle-class mistress Moonstone moral narrative narrator nature passion plot political possession property laws property reform provincial question Rachel readers realism Redworth relations relationship representation represents resistance rhetoric romance scene sensation novel sensationalism sexual Shirley Shirley's social social realism society space sphere story struggle suggests things Verinder Victorian fiction Victorian novel Villette voice Wessex widow wife wives woman of property women Woodlanders writing