
Revising Women
Eighteenth-century Women's Fiction and Social Engagement
Paula R. Backscheider(Editor)
Johns Hopkins University Press
Published on 21. October 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
296 pages
978-0-8018-7095-8 (ISBN)
Description
Revising Women is a collection of essays by a distinguished group of feminist critics. Each essay is a contribution to the history of the English novel, to our understanding of literature's place in cultural debate, and to women's studies. The essays give steady attention to the ways novels participate in social processes and the ways women perceived the public sphere and stubbornly attempted to participate in it. Rich contextualization and adept use of theory reveal both the individual writer's story and the story beneath the text that is a cultural production with the potential to reveal why we and our society are as we are. Each essay develops ways of using history in relation to literature, takes up large historical events and issues, and interprets in fine detail what individuals do with them. Beginning with the fictions of the late seventeenth century, and ending with Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen, the essays in Revising Women are characterized by informed historicizing, detailed textual explication, sophisticated feminist theory, and dedicated attention to the interrelationships between life and literary works and between everyday existence and political processes.
Reviews / Votes
In her preface, Backscheider makes high claims for this collection as the fruit of several lifetimes' feminist rereading of 18th-century fiction. These claims turn out to be justified by a truly extraordinary book. Choice These are valuable essays. Those who are interested in eighteenth-century English women, whether or not they are literary scholars, will find much to interest and stimulate them in this book. -- Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg Albion Written to illustrate the maturity of a discipline, the essays in Revising Women demonstrate that women writers used fiction to participate in debates taking place in the public sphere. -- Nora Nachumi JASNA News The project that has engaged Paula Backscheider, one of the most prolific and prominent scholars in the field of eighteenth-century studies, is one that I believe is both heroic and potentially enduring: to reconcile the sort of thick description she favors-historical-biographical narratives that take full advantage of extant archive material and reveal richly detailed portraits of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British culture-with the lessons learned and opportunities afforded by recent literary theory. -- Richard C. Taylor NWSA Journal 2003 These essays reinforce the need to reevaluate female authorship of the eighteenth century. -- Rikki Noel-Williams Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2003More details
Edition
Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
5 s/w Zeichnungen
5, 5 black & white line drawings
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
404 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8018-7095-8 (9780801870958)
DOI
10.56021/9780801862366
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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E-Book
12/2002
Johns Hopkins University Press
€23.99
Available for download
Book
03/2000
Johns Hopkins University Press
€64.03
Article not available for order
Person
Paula R. Backscheider is West Point Pepperell-Philpott Eminent Scholar in the Department of English at Auburn University. Her books include Daniel Defoe: His Life and Spectacular Politics: Theatrical Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England, both available from Johns Hopkins.
Content
Contents: The Novel's Gendered Space, Paula R. Backscheider * The Rise of Gender as Political Category, Paula R. Backscheider * Renegotiating the Gothic, Betty Rizzo * My Art Belongs to Daddy? Thomas Day, Maria Edgeworth, and the Pre-Texts of Belinda: Women Writers and Patriachal Authority Mitzi Myers * Jane Austen and the Culture of Circulating Libraries: The Construction of Female Literacy, Barbara M. Benedict