Women and Literature in Britain, 1700–1800

This collection of new essays brings together feminist critics, cultural historians and historians of publishing to provide a unique and up-to-date introduction to women’s writing and its contexts in the eighteenth century. It was during this period that women began to contribute in significantly large numbers to a rapidly-expanding print culture. This volume documents the range and diversity of that contribution. It analyses the social, legal and ideological constructions of women which female writers had to negotiate, and it explores women’s writing across a wide spectrum of genres - from fiction to broadside ballads, meditative poetry to confessional memoirs - as well as women’s involvement as printers, sellers and purchasers of printed texts. An invaluable overview of women and literary culture in the period, Women and Literature in Britain, 1700–1800 is also an important contribution to our understanding of women’s roles in the emergent public sphere of print.

• Unique in giving an authoritative, up-to-date overview of women and writing in the eighteenth century for scholars and students • New essays by respected scholars in the field • Chronology, guide to further reading and cross-referencing make it accessible and user-friendly for student readership

Introduction Vivien Jones; Part I. Constructing Women in the Eighteenth Century: i. Eighteenth-Century Femininities: 1. Writings on education and conduct: arguments for female improvement Kathryn Sutherland; 2. Eighteenth-century femininity: ‘a supposed sexual character’ Harriet Guest; 3. Women and race: ‘a difference of complexion’ Felicity A. Nussbaum; ii. Women, Family, and the Law: 4. Women’s status as legal and civic subjects: ‘a worse condition than slavery itself?’ Gillian Skinner; 5. Women in families: the great disturbance Ruth Perry; iii. Women and Print: 6. Women and the business of print Paula McDowell; 7. Women readers: a case study Jan Fergus; Part II. Writing Women in the Eighteenth Century: 8. (Re)discovering women’s texts Isobel Grundy; 9. Women and the rise of the novel: sexual prescripts Ros Ballaster; 10. Women poets of the eighteenth century Margaret Anne Doody; 11. Women and the theatre Angela J. Smallwood; 12. Women and popular culture: gender, cultural dynamics, and popular prints Dianne Dugaw; 13. Varieties of women’s writing Clare Brant; Guide to further reading.

‘An excellent companion … first rate articles, up to date in terms of thought, scholarhsip and biography.’ Choice