Hannah More: The First Victorian [Paperback]

Anne Stott (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199274886 | ISBN-13: 978-0199274888 | Publication Date: November 18, 2004

Hannah More was a public figure at a time when domesticity was regarded as women's chief virtue. Her career as playwright, bluestocking, Evangelical educationalist, anti-slavery campaigner, political writer, and novelist made her one of the most influential women of her day. This is the first substantial biography of More for fifty years and the first to make extensive use of her unpublished correspondence. Anne Stott reveals her as a more lively and attractive character than previous stereotypes have suggested. She demonstrates that More was a complex and contradictory figure: a conservative who was accused of political and religious subversion, an ostensible antifeminist who opened up new opportunities for female activism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stott's book is thoroughly researched and brings together as no other biography of More has yet attempted an exploration of the breadth and depth of More's life and work and the context of her times." --Modern History

"Very readable and enormously well-researched, Stott is to be congratulated on giving More sympathetic recognition for living of individualism, commitment, and principle, however it fit or did not fit into our historical understanding of her time."--Albion

"This excellent biography is a study in sexual politics as much as literary history.... In her lifetime [Hannah More]...was arguably the most eminent and most influential of all female writers."--Peter Ackroyd, The Times [London]

"Excellent.... The first modern biography of More and the first to make full use of her extensive correspondence.... First-rate...well attuned to the nuances of [its] fascinating subject."--Times Higher Education Supplement

"Turns the Mary Whitehouse of the 19th century into a figure of page-turning curiosity and appeal."--Frances Wilson, Sunday Telegraph

"This biography--the first in half a century--offers a realistic portrait of this energetic, unstoppable woman which acknowledges her unique strengths without idealising her.... [Hannah More] should be hailed as a prime mover not only in the development of elementary education but in the growth of pressure group politics."--Lucasta Miller, The Guardian

"[A] timely new biography...thoroughly researched and well-written."--Claire Harman, Times Literary Supplement

"The first full-length biography of this polymath...for fifty years.... Stott, in her thorough and very readable biography, not only makes her out to be a lively personality, but also thoughtfully explores the ambiguities involved in assessing her role as a woman in public life. --Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

About the Author

Anne Stott is at Associate Lecturer, Open University, and Sessional Lecturer, Birkbeck College, London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199274886
• ISBN-13: 978-0199274888
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,542,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Victorian

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