A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing [Paperback]

Elaine Showalter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1977

A study of British women novelists.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Readers of this new, enlarged edition of the classic feminist study of British women novelists will find themselves delighted by Elaine Showalter's astute and acerbic critical intelligence. Showalter is one of the few scholars who can make her readers rush to their bookshelves to refute her point, or simply to experience again Jane Eyre, The Mill on the Floss, or the bitterly illuminating stories of Katherine Mansfield. Her chief innovation is to place the works of famous women writers beside those of the minor or forgotten, building a continuity of influence and inspiration as well as a more complete picture of the social conditions in which women's books have been produced. She has added a new introduction recounting, with justifiable pleasure, how daring and controversial her study seemed when it first appeared in 1977 (and how many enemies it made her). In an afterword, she touches on more recent developments in the women's novel in Britain, including the influence of the dazzling Angela Carter. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

'Elaine Showalter's proceedings in this book, both as historian and as literary critic, are sane, illuminating, fascinating and wise' A.S. BAYATT, THE TIMES --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 378 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; Revised edition (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691013438
• ISBN-13: 978-0691013435
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #210,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literature of Their Own is Dr. Elaine Showalter's survey of British women authors from the Brontes to today, June 22, 2009

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Literature of Their Own (Paperback)

Anyone familiar with literary criticism recognizes the name of Elaine Showalter Ph.D. Showalter is an emrita professor of Princeton University who is the most famous feminine literary critic. Her new book "A Jury of Her Peers" on female authors in the USA has been reviewed by me on Amazon.

Like that later work I find "A Literature of Their Own" to be outstanding. Showalter's title was influenced by Virginia Woolf's famous essay " A Room of Their Own" in which she argued that for women to be able to write fiction they needed their own income, a quiet room and a spirit of androgyny.

Showalter reports that in typical English Literature courses there are only a quartet of major female authors who are highlighted. These women are Jane Austen; the Brontes; George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Showalter in this 1977 book (which developed out of her doctoral dissertation) aims to introduce modern readers to many of th worthy women authors who lived in England from the 1840s to such modern female artists as Angela Carter, Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble.

Showalter shows how women had to face great odds to have their works published due to the Victorian belief in the inferiority of the female brain. Women were also restricted in their use of explicit language and sexual matters being regarded as "The Angel of the Household.

Women did gain ground in the publishing industry in the 1880-90s producing sensational fiction by such authors as Mary Ellen Braddon and also suffragate novels and periodical journalism.

This book is not the easiest read for a layperson new to female literature in Great Britain. The most interesting parts of the book were her discussions of the lives and careers of George Eliot (pseudonymn for Mary Ann Evans), the Brontes and especially Virginia Woolf.

The book should be required reading in any English Literature collegiate level courses. Elaine Showalter has done pioneering research on

a rich field of literary gold that more scholars and readers should familiarize themelves with in an effort to be well informed. The English woman should be proud of the literary endeavors of her sisters who weathered great hardships and challenges to produce stellar literature!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Readable Critical Look at British Women Novelists, July 25, 2011

By 

Barbara J. Mitchell "Rural View" (Hallstead, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (Paperback)

During a heat wave you would think I'd be reading something light and "beachy" but no, I've been reading this serious critical look at British women novelists from Bronte to Lessing from a feminist point of view. This is a revised and expanded edition of her original book published in 1977 I believe.

Those early women novelists were admirable, strong women. With all the restrictions on their education and lifestyle, they still managed to write novels that are widely read even today. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and all the other beloved novels they wrote have much of value to say to we modern women with all our freedoms. Just think, they had little or no education, were only trained to catch a man, hopefully a rich one, and had no knowledge of the life of anyone other than people just like themselves. Most of us would go stark raving mad with all their confining rules. Their fathers and then husbands had total control over them, even over what they were allowed to read.

We get a slight taste of this kind of life watching series on Masterpiece Theater, but the girls in those families are sly enough to find ways around the men in their lives. I doubt most women in 19th century English upper classes could get away with such things.

Showalter, a Princeton professor, wrote this book as a result of an academic study of all the women novelists in England and this is a book that could easily be used as a textbook. That is not to say that it is dry and boring, anything but. I found it very readable and fascinating, enough so to read it through a week of terrible heat and humidity. Now I'm going on to something very light, but this book told me not only about the writing these women did, but nearly every aspect of their lives. The addition of novelists of the modern day through Doris Lessing is a small part of the overall book.

The feminist aspects of the book are enlightening as well, and Showalter includes much about the suffragists' struggle for the vote and against war. I confess this was the least interesting part to me, but I must admit that it would be impossible to separate the feminist movement from English women's literature since each was influenced greatly by the other.

I recommend this book but not to everyone. If you are interested in women's history or the early English women novelists, you will enjoy this study. Otherwise, you'll do better to stick with the actual novels, but don't let yourself be misguided in the thought that 19th century novels will be boring. You'll miss some excellent reads.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating study of literature by female authors, December 12, 2008

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Tracy Marks (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Bronte to Lessing (Paperback)

This fascinating study of literature by female authors of the last 150 years clearly reveals the struggles that these authors faced, not only externally but also internally - as they shunned the traditional feminine role in choosing to be authors, yet needed to come to terms with it and redefine female identity. Most of them did so, either as anti-feminists (glorifying the submissive, altruistic female) or feminists such as George Eliot, choosing to forge a role totally apart from societal definitions of women. Yet at the same time they had to wrestle with demons, often personified by mad or wild women in their novels. The ways in which these conflicts are reflected in the novels are particularly interesting. I for one was most intrigued by the discussion of Bronte's Jane Eyre and Eliot's Mill on the Floss. Many other novels are discussed as well.