Description
Book SynopsisIn illuminating the powerful and often poorly recognized legacy of the British women writers who spurred a marketplace revolution in their earlier years only to find unanticipated barriers to acceptance in later life, Looser opens up new scholarly territory in the burgeoning field of feminist age studies.
Trade ReviewCompelling and interesting... Like a latter-day Isaac D'Israeli, Looser explores many byways of 18th- and early-19th century authorship and publication. Accordingly, specialists in those periods will find here a trove of useful, thought-provoking historical anecdote. Choice 2009 So meticulously researched and her prose so pleasantly lucid and unassuming... Looser crafts a convincing argument for the reexamination of women writers like Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Porter, and Anna Letitia Barbauld, paying closer attention to their later lives and works. -- Jeanine M. Casler Papers on Language and Literature 2009 Engaging and clearly written, Looser's book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of what it meant to be an elderly female writer in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries while also identifying important considerations of fact and methodology often overlooked without the perspective of age studies. -- Kay Heath Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 2009 The book's lively introduction offers plenty of promise. Looser conveys considerable enthusiasm about her subject and the impressive archival research she conducted for Women Writers and Old Age. Throughout the six chapters, Looser maintains a lucid and engaging style that many contemporary scholars might well emulate. -- Marilyn Roberts Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 2009 Devoney Looser is one of the best at bringing together biographical evidence, sophisticated theory, and literary sensibility. -- Paula R. Backscheider Studies in English Literature 2009 Devoney Looser has written an extremely important book that sensitively explores ageism and the literary marketplace just when the Mothers of the Novel were writing their final chapters. -- Laurie Kaplan JASNA News 2009 Elegant and original study... Looser not only offers a fresh perspective on individual reputations but raises intriguing questions about the procession of 'generations' in literary history. -- Elizabeth Eger Times Literary Supplement 2009 One of the strengths of Women Writers and Old Age is Looser's uncompromising willingness to acknowledge how difficult it was for older women writers to triumph over the cultural forces ranged against them. -- Roxanne Eberle Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 2010 This is a thought-provoking... contribution not only to old age and gender studies but also to the literary history of the long 18th century. -- Anne-Julia Zwierlein Zeitschrift fuer Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2010 Wide-ranging and scrupulous book explores a neglected and fascinating subject. -- Caroline Gonda Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2010 Although Looser's assumptions may not be shared by every reader, the book is so well informed and ends with such a vast bibliography that everyone stands to learn by it. -- Marialuisa Bignami Modern Language Review 2010 Women Writers in Old Age, 1750-1850, provides a valuable contribution to the nascent field of study. -- Patricia Murphy Nineteenth-Century Literature 2009 With Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750-1850... Devoney Looser is one of the best at bringing together biographical evidence, sophisticated theory, and literary sensibility. -- Paula R. Backscheider Studies in English Literature 2009 A groundbreaking study of the late careers of women writers. Year's Work in English Studies 2010 A well-written, imaginative, carefully researched, and fascinating study. -- Lisa Vargo Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 2009
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: Women Writers and Old Age, 1750-1850
1. Past the Period of Choosing to Write a "Love-tale"? Frances Burney's and Maria Edgeworth's Late Fiction
2. Catharine Macaulay's Waning Laurels
3. What Is Old in Jane Austen?
4. Hester Lynch Piozzi, Antiquity of Bath
5. "One generation passeth away, and another cometh": Anna Letitia Barbauld's Late Literary Work
6. Jane Porter and the Old Woman Writer's Quest for Financial Independence
Conclusion: "Old women now-a-days are not much thought of; out of sight out of mind with them, now-a-days"
Notes
Bibliography
Index
