Women of Letters Writing Lives

Two scholar books with references to Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë:

Writing Lives
Literary Biography
Midge Gillies
Cambridge University Press
Series: Cambridge Contexts in Literature
Paperback
ISBN-13: 9780521732314

Critical introductions to a range of literary topics and genres. Writing Lives takes as its focus life writing, both autobiography and biography, discussing these genres specifically within the contexts of the lives and literary careers of writers, past and present. In addition to exploring the key characteristics of life writing, the book also examines the relationship between the lives of authors and the influence of these lives both on their own writing and on the reception of their work by contemporary and later readers. The book traces the origins of literary biography from its early roots to its position as a best-selling genre in its own right and asks to what extent the reader can trust biography and autobiography. Includes extracts from, and discussion of, a range of authors including Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, Virginia Woolf and Ian McEwan.

Chapter 3 (Texts and extracts) includes Elizabeth Gaskell, from The Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Becoming a Woman of Letters:
Myths of Authorship and Facts of the Victorian Market
Linda H. Peterson
University Presses of California, Columbia and Princeton
June 2009
ISBN: 0691140170

During the nineteenth century, women authors for the first time achieved professional status, secure income, and public fame. How did these women enter the literary profession; meet the demands of editors, publishers, booksellers, and reviewers; and achieve distinction as "women of letters"? Becoming a Woman of Letters examines the various ways women writers negotiated the market realities of authorship, and looks at the myths and models women writers constructed to elevate their place in the profession.
Drawing from letters, contracts, and other archival material, Linda Peterson details the careers of various women authors from the Victorian period. Some, like Harriet Martineau, adopted the practices of their male counterparts and wrote for periodicals before producing a best seller; others, like Mary Howitt and Alice Meynell, began in literary partnerships with their husbands and pursued independent careers later in life; and yet others, like Charlotte Brontë, and her successors Charlotte Riddell and Mary Cholmondeley, wrote from obscure parsonages or isolated villages, hoping an acclaimed novel might spark a meteoric rise to fame. Peterson considers these women authors' successes and failures--the critical esteem that led to financial rewards and lasting reputations, as well as the initial successes undermined by publishing trends and pressures.
Exploring the burgeoning print culture and the rise of new genres available to Victorian women authors, this book provides a comprehensive account of the flowering of literary professionalism in the nineteenth century.

Includes:
Chapter 4: Parallel Currents: The Life of Charlotte Bronte as Mid-Victorian Myth of Women's Authorship
Chapter 5: Challenging Brontëan Myths of Authorship: Charlotte Riddell and A Struggle for Fame (1883)

Categories: Books, Elizabeth Gaskell, Scholar