Woman's Work in English Fiction

This is an excellent reference for anyone interested in Women's History. The writings of many of the women considered in this volume have sunk into an oblivion from which their intrinsic merit should have preserved them. This is partly due to the fact that nearly all the books on literature have been written from a man's stand-point. Many men who acknowledge unhesitatingly that Jane Austen is superior as an artist to Smollett, will find more pleasure in the breezy adventures of Roderick Random than in the drawing-room atmosphere of Emma; while no woman can read a novel of Smollett's without loathing, although she must acknowledge that the Scottish writer is a man of genius. When the novel took on literary form, women began to write. They were not imitators of men, but opened up new paths of fiction, in many of which they excelled. Started as a Master's thesis, this tome covers the time period from the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period. Women's Studies