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
Results 1-5 of 84
Page
... debate and change that are so manifest an aspect of its intellectual, artistic and social landscape. University of Leicester Vincent Newey Joanne Shattock Acknowledgements The research for this book was originally undertaken as Preface.
... debate and change that are so manifest an aspect of its intellectual, artistic and social landscape. University of Leicester Vincent Newey Joanne Shattock Acknowledgements The research for this book was originally undertaken as Preface.
Page
... social constraints on Victorian women. Nor do they concern themselves overtly with the slow processes of repeal which 'struck', in Lord Shaftesbury's words, 'at the root of domestic happiness' (Holcombe, 1983, p. 175). There is little ...
... social constraints on Victorian women. Nor do they concern themselves overtly with the slow processes of repeal which 'struck', in Lord Shaftesbury's words, 'at the root of domestic happiness' (Holcombe, 1983, p. 175). There is little ...
Page
... social novels is striking; even more striking is the fact that we rarely see the progress of one' (1997, p.199). The age-old matrimonial ending becomes in these novels a double sign of the heroine's triumphant accession to a newly ...
... social novels is striking; even more striking is the fact that we rarely see the progress of one' (1997, p.199). The age-old matrimonial ending becomes in these novels a double sign of the heroine's triumphant accession to a newly ...
Page
... social plot , making explicit in the process certain powerful links between socio - legal conditions and narrative possibilities . Charlotte Brontë's Shirley ( 1849 ) and George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways ( 1885 ) bound and ...
... social plot , making explicit in the process certain powerful links between socio - legal conditions and narrative possibilities . Charlotte Brontë's Shirley ( 1849 ) and George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways ( 1885 ) bound and ...
Page
... social problems and in public affairs? As married women they would have no practical means of helping to solve the ... social assumptions about femininity and the proper role of wives and mothers, and so powerfully were those assumptions ...
... social problems and in public affairs? As married women they would have no practical means of helping to solve the ... social assumptions about femininity and the proper role of wives and mothers, and so powerfully were those assumptions ...
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 | |
Other editions - View all
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