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The Female Romantics: Nineteenth-century Women Novelists and Byronism

Overlap with Pre-2008 Publications: A portion of Chapter one (pp.12-19) revisits comments on Corinne from my essay in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, (ed.Taylor and Knott, 2005), pp.551-564, now incorporated into a new argument on displaced aristocrats. Part of Chapter four (pp.92-100) on Persuasion is a revised extract from an essay in Romanticism and Form (ed. Rawes, 2007), pp.171-191. Chapter seven originated as an essay in Transatlantic Stowe: Harriet Beecher Stowe and European Culture, (ed. Kohn, Todd and Meer, 2006), pp.3-23. It is extended to include new material on Dred, on the vilification of Lady Byron and Stowe’s Romantic Racism.

Extensive research over ten years was necessary because of the considerable scope of the book. It examines key works of 9 authors of various nationalities over 70 years of the nineteenth century. Each chapter also required research into a different genre: travel writing, the oriental tale, Gothic fantasy, courtship fiction, the female bildungsroman, the classic realist Victorian novel and crusading romance. The book required detailed investigation into the reception history of Byron's poetry and celebrity in the Victorian periodical press. Archival work on Lady Byron’s papers was undertaken in New York, Edinburgh and Oxford.