The Awkward Age in Women's Popular Fiction, 1850-1900

Download or read book The Awkward Age in Women's Popular Fiction, 1850-1900 written by Sarah Bilston and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-07-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates that 'the awkward age' formed a fault-line in Victorian female experience, an unusual phase in which restlessness, self-interest, and rebellion were possible. Tracing evolving treatments of female adolescence though a host of long-forgotten women's fictions, the book reveals that representations of the girl in popular women's literature importantly anticipated depictions of the feminist in the fin de siècle New Woman writing; conservative portrayals of girls' hopes, dreams, and subsequent frustrations helped clear a literary and cultural space for the New Woman's 'awakening' to disaffected consciousness. The book thus both historicises the evolution and mythic appeal of the female adolescent and works to receive suggestive exchanges between apparently diverse female literary traditions.