Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era

by Elizabeth Campbell Denlinger, Lyndall Gordon (Foreword)

It might not have the been the revolution that Mary Wollstonecraft called for in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), but the Romantic era did witness a dramatic change in women's lives. Combining literary and cultural history, this richly illustrated volume brings back to life a remarkable, though frequently overlooked, group of women who transformed British culture and inspired new ways of understanding feminine roles and female sexuality. What was this revolution like? Women were expected to be more moral, more constrained, and more private than in the eighteenth century, when women such as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire crafted bold public personas. Genteel women no longer laughed aloud at bawdy jokes and noblewomen ran charity bazaars instead of private casinos. By 1800, motherhood had become a sacred calling and women who could afford to do so devoted themselves to the home. While this idealization of domesticity kept some women off the streets, it afforded others new opportunities. Often working from home, women wrote novels and poetry, sculpted busts, painted portraits, and conducted scientific research. They also seized the chance to do good, and crafted new public roles for themselves as philanthropists and reformers. Now-obscure female astronomers, photographers, sculptors, and mathematicians share these pages with celebrated writers such as Mary Shelley, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Robinson, who in addition to being a novelist and actress was also the mistress of the Prince of Wales. This book also makes full use of The New York Public Library's extensive collections, including graphic works and caricatures from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, manuscripts, hand-colored illustrations, broadsides, drawings, oil paintings, notebooks, albums and early photographs. These vivid, beautiful, and often humorous images depict these women, their works, and their social and domestic worlds.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2005

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where I got the book: purchased from Amazon.

I found this little gem because it was referenced in a wiki on a historical character I wanted to research. It is an account of the lives of, as the subtitle says, extraordinary women in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It consists of topical chapters with a short introduction, followed by accounts of the lives of women whose biographies illustrate the writer's theme.

This is an excellent primer for anyone who is unfamiliar with the pre-Victorian era and would like a place to start. The book is a nicely put together, quality printing, illustrated by fascinating images of the women and their work where appropriate. I noticed one duplicate paragraph, but otherwise the presentation was flawless.

I learned a great deal about the individual women from Denlinger's beautifully clear summaries. I also got an impression of life growing harder and more restrictive for women as the nineteenth century drew on with its notions of propriety and submissive womanhood.

And what a cast of characters: mistresses, courtesans, writers, poets, artists, scientists, lesbians, princesses and travelers. If you're a writer looking for an interesting historical main character, grab a copy of this book.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. I found I got tired of reading about how much sex married women of the time could get away with to keep up with their philandering husbands. I did find the section about Caroline Norton interesting. She was a woman married to a brutal man who accused her of infidelity although she was innocent. He moved out taking the children, her 3 sons. In that time men had all rights to children and property, even if women had brought property to the union. Mrs. Norton fought in parliament with some help of friends and had laws enacted that kept small children with the mother, the Infant Custody Bill. Later, a law was enacted, The Married Women's Property Bill that had a huge sweeping impact on reform of the day.