The mid-Victorian professional woman of letters: Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury and the economics of the publishing and literary marketplace, 1840-1880

Abstract

This thesis addresses the nature of female professionalism within the literary and publishing marketplace of mid-Victorian Britain, by examining Geraldine Jewsbury's career (1812-1880) as a publisher's reader, reviewer and circulating library novelist. I address the economics of women's writing, from detailed examination of Jewsbury's earnings (in comparison to Braddon, Oliphant and Craik) to discussion about the prejudice of women's literary professionalism. Written from a cultural-historical perspective, this thesis assesses Jewsbury's representations of. religious scepticism, love, passion, women's vocation, education and industrial reform. Examining not only her fiction, but also Jewsbury's numerous reader's reports, critical reviews and letters, I create a composite picture of the professional Mid-Victorian woman writer. This thesis draws on a wide array of archival material, (British Library Bentley Manuscripts, Mantell Papers, Dolaucothi Collection, Bentley Manuscripts from California and Illinois Universities), a good number of which have previously remained outside Jewsbury scholarship. It examines Jewsbury's unique role as publisher's reader, and relates this to patterns of female literary professionalism. Jewsbury's first three novels, Zoe (1845), The Haýf Sisters (1848) and Marian Withers (185 1), initiate a discussion within mid-Victorian fiction about the question of religious scepticism, women's vocation and the need for associative principles within industrial relations. I consider Jewsbury's contribution to literary criticism as an anonymous female in an established male field (as Athenaeum fiction reviewer) and explore her paradoxical ideology about the women reader and writer. This is mainly addressed through her contradictory conservative morality and appreciation of the popularity and commercial success of sensationalism in the 1860s. The theoretical assumption behind this thesis is that an historical approach, backed up by archival research, will take us as long way to understanding Jewsbury's literary professionalism. As such, this thesis contributes to recent feminist criticism which recognises the need to relate women writers to the marketplace, perceiving their writing as containing divergent ideologies of the representations of female professionalism. Therefore the significance of Jewsbury's work and career is seen through its relevance to wider contemporary debates and its importance to furthering an understanding of Victorian literature, society and feminist criticism.