Aristocratic Women and the Literary Nation, 1832-1867

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 1-19

3. Class and Authorship

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

      PDF

   2. Aristocratic Lives: Life-Writing, Class and Authority

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 23-45

   3. Dilettantes and Dandies: Authorship and the Silver Fork Novel

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 46-62

   4. Silly Novels and Lady Novelists: Inside the Literary Marketplace

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 63-86

4. Writing the Nation State

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 87-91

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   2. Wrongs Make Rebels: Polemical Voices

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 93-128

   3. The Spectacle of Fiction: Self, Society and the Novel

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 129-152

   4. Affairs of State: Aristocratic Women and the Politics of Influence

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 153-179

   5. Conclusion: 1867 and Beyond

      • Muireann O’Cinneide

      Pages 180-183

5. Back Matter

   Pages 184-241

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Aristocratic women flourished in the Victorian literary world, their combination of class privilege and gendered exclusion generating distinctively socialized modes of participation in cultural and political activity. Their writing offers an important trope through which to consider the nature of political, private and public spheres.

• fiction
• novel
• Victorian era
• women
• British and Irish Literature

"[This] book will be of interest to both feminists and historians of the novel." - Miriam Elizabeth Burstein, College at Brockport, SUNY

MUIREANN O'CINNEIDE is a Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research centres on women's writing, politics, and empire.

Policies and ethics