Popular Victorian Women Writers

'Popular Victorian women writers' is a collection of essays on a diverse group of women writers working within the Victorian literary marketplace. The book includes essays on well-known authors such as Ellen Wood, Mary Braddon, Rhoda Broughton and Charlotte Yonge but also includes pieces on writers such as Jessie Fothergill and Eliza Meteyard who are rarely read nowadays, even by Victorian specialists. Fothergill and Meteyard, together with Mary Howitt, form a trio of writers considered within the book whose writing focused particularly on issues of social progress. Wood, Braddon and Broughton are collectively associated with best-selling sensation and romantic fiction. Writing for and about children and childhood is represented here by the work of Charlotte Yonge, Louisa Molesworth and Juliana Ewing. Each essay sets the individual author briefly within their biographical and literary context and provides original insights into their work. One of the strengths of this collection is its variety and inclusivity. It brings the work of largely unknown authors and new perspectives on known authors to critical and public attention. The essays are accessible and informative enough for an undergraduate with little or no knowledge of each author, and are ideal for students of Victorian literature and culture on a variety of courses, as well as for tutors who want to direct their students to read outside of the canon. The book will also be of interest to scholars of the Victorian period, particularly of popular fiction and the marketplace.