The women's sensation novel of the 1860s and the New Woman fiction of the 1890s were two major examples of a perceived feminine invasion of fiction which caused a critical furore in their day. Both genres, with their shocking, `fast' heroines, fired the popular imagination by putting female sexuality on the literary agenda and undermining the `proper feminine' ideal to which nineteenth-century women and fictional heroines were supposed to aspire. By exploring in impressive depth and breadth the material and discursive conditions in which these novels were produced, The `Improper' Feminine draws attention to key gendered interrelationships within the literary and wider cultures of the mid-Victorian and fin-de-diècle periods.
| ISBN: | 9780415862066 |
| Publication date: | 31st October 2013 |
| Author: | Lyn Pykett |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 248 pages |
| Genres: |
Feminism and feminist theory Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary theory |