The Rebel of the Family

by Eliza Lynn Linton

The Rebel of the Family (1880) is the first New Woman novel by Eliza Lynn Linton. Perdita Winstanley, the novel’s protagonist, struggles to balance the competing demands of her snobbish, conservative mother and sisters, her radical friends in the women’s rights movement, and an admirable but low-born chemist and his family. The Rebel of the Family also includes what is perhaps the first literary portrait of the late-Victorian lesbian community in London, featuring Bell Blount and her “little wife” Connie. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and appendices that help to set the work in its historical and literary contexts.

COMMENTS

“Eliza Lynn Linton—the Victorian journalist, novelist, and fierce anti-feminist—could never decide whether she loved or hated being a woman. The Rebel of the Family—a strange, acidulous tale about a young woman striving (and failing) to break free from the sex-conventions of her day—is one of her most fascinating and tormented works. Linton put into it all of her own ferociously mixed feelings, and it remains, a century later, a mordant, rebarbative, yet peculiarly affecting work of art.” — Terry Castle, Stanford University

“Eliza Lynn Linton was one of Victorian England’s most outspoken critics of the ‘modern woman,’ even as her own independent, professional life so obviously bore out the importance of the struggle for women’s rights that her writings condemned. Linton’s life and work attest to complexities and contradictions of Victorian England’s debates on the woman question, and The Rebel of the Family (1880)—perhaps her most intriguing novel (including one of the earliest sketches of the mannish lesbian, and serving as a model for Henry James’s The Bostonians)—reflects these contradictions. This edition is a ‘must read’ for scholars of Victorian, gender, and women’s studies.” — Margaret Breen, University of Connecticut

Genres: Victorian, 19th Century, Classics, Fiction, Historical

487 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1880

About the author

Note Eliza's books are sometimes published under Elizabeth Lynn Linton or as E. Lynn Linton.

Eliza Lynn Linton was a British novelist, essayist, and journalist.

The daughter of a clergyman and granddaughter of a bishop of Carlisle, she arrived in London in 1845 as the protegé of poet Walter Savage Landor. In the following year she produced her first novel, Azeth, the Egyptian; Amymone (1848), and Realities (1851), followed. None of these had any great success, and she became a journalist, joining the staff of the Morning Chronicle, and All the Year Round.

In 1858 she married W. J. Linton, an eminent wood-engraver, who was also a poet of some note, a writer upon his craft, and a Chartist agitator. In 1867 they separated in a friendly way, the husband going to America, and the wife returning to writing novels, in which she finally attained wide popularity. Her most successful works were The True History of Joshua Davidson (1872), Patricia Kemball (1874), and Christopher Kirkland.

She was also a severe critic of the "New Woman." Her most famous essay on this subject, "The Girl of the Period," was published in Saturday Review in 1868 and was a vehement attack on feminism. In 1891, she wrote "Wild Women as Politicians" which explained her opinion that politics was naturally the sphere of men, as was fame of any sort. "Amongst our most renowned womené, she wrote, "are some who say with their whole heart, 'I would rather have been the wife of a great man, or the mother of a hero, than what I am, famous in my own person." Mrs Linton is a leading example of the fact that the fight against votes for Women was not only organized by men.
-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This obscure Victorian novel is a cross between sensation fiction & New Woman study. ELL's prose is very thick, & unlike most authors from this era** her personal conflicts & confused self-perception are quite evident. But that's what makes this such a raw, honest read underneath the flowery prose & lengthy paragraphs. TBH, I can see how people might not like it -- but I grew more & more a fan of Linton's style as the book progressed. She has an unusual voice, mixing prudish judgmental asides with an almost PG Wodehouse sense of humor & lol'ing at the hypocrisy in her characters. Nobody is safe from her critiques -- not the 'mannish' lesbian Bell Blount, not snobbish Mrs Winstanley & her 'good' daughters,*** not the blustering nouveau riche tycoon Mr Brocklebank (whom I was very fond of), not the uber-conservative Mrs Crawford, & certainly not Perdita, the nominal protagonist. 'Our rebel' might be the fulcrum, but the story showcases more of an ensemble cast than the blurb implies.

4 stars -- not an easy read, but ultimately worth the effort, particularly for those interested in primary source Victorian women's fic or 19th-c domestic melodrama. :) I will be looking for more of Linton, who seems to be sadly neglected but for a handful of scholarly reprints. (Shout-out to the editor of this edition, who penned a great intro & helpful-but-not-overdone footnotes.)


**As an overall unit, nobody mastered the Distant Omniscient Narrator technique quite like Victorians.

***IMO, Perdita's older sister Thomasina is a particularly complex character who deserves to be studied as intensely as Bell Blount.

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overlooked, entertaining, and scathing look at the hypocrisies and classism of mid-Victorian upper-class society. Like Jane Austen, Linton does a fantastic job of creating ridiculous characters that often border on being caricatures, which in this case is not a flaw but rather a strength that contributes to the one's enjoyment and understanding of the novel. It is unclear what Linton, a professed anti-feminist, intends for her message to be, but I actually found the ambiguity of the novel's message to be one of its neatest parts. You can read this and cheer for Perdita, the protagonist, as she struggles against traditional views of instilled idleness for upper-class females, or you can read The Rebel of the Family as an amusing study of society. Either way, you are sure to be entertained.

[Edwin John Moorhouse Marr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. This is a rather strange book. At times, this reminded me of Jane Austen, quite bitingly sarcastic, and cruel about her characters, and as someone who doesn't like Austen, I think this is something I struggled with in this book. I also really struggled to understand what Lynn Linton was trying to say - right up until the end when *Spoiler alert* Perdita marries Leslie, then I completely got what ELL was saying, that the only true happiness a woman can find is through marriage and love - and this is inherently problematic. ELL's dislike towards the women's movement is apparent throughout the book, as can be seen with Bell Blout, a crudely drawn caricature of the lesbian, what would now be called by certain individuals a 'femminazi'. And this is another key problem of the book, it doesn't offer nuance, it shows the women's movement as monstrous, man-hating, something that is clearly overblown, but nevertheless shows 1880 anxieties about women's liberation. Bell Blout isn't the only one dimensional character, all of the characters are, Mrs Winstanley the money-grabbing, 'keeping up appearances' mother, Eva the coquette, Thomasina the moderator, Perdita the 'rebel', Lesley the kind commoner, and the French scoundrel. None of these characters are really developed or complex, and having read a few books by George Eliot lately whose characters are so complicated, the oversimplification of ELL's characters feels very jarring. However, there were things I liked about this book. I loved the sense of Perdita's being torn between polarised opposites, and unable to find her own space in between these extremes, yet her restoration at the end, gave an inescapable uncomfortable feeling that Peridta was punished for being different, only to be redeemed through conformity and love. So whilst this book says some very interesting things about women's lib in the late Victorian period, the position of the New Woman, and class boundaries during this time, it feels too crudely drawn, too one dimensional and presents the women's movement from too biased and condemning an angle, to be a truly great book.

[Sasha]

So, this woman in the Victorian club specializes in lesser-known female Victorian authors and she recommended a bunch of books to me. Neat thing to specialize in, huh? I realize some of these are less lesser-known than others; she does too.

Guess what this book has? Lesbians! Whee!

BTW I am going to repeat this message for several other books, so...get used to it.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look at how an anti-feminist of the late 19th century tackled the "new woman." Rather than a diatribe or screed, Linton creates an ambiguous portrait of a girl totally at odds with the values of her conventional family.

[Gwyn Bailey]

This book had been on my TBR shelves for far too long and I am so glad that at last I have read it! A bit confusing and long winded at first, trying to find out the author's 'agenda' but well worth the effort!

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest I didn't *completely* finish the book in time for today's class, but I read most of it. I'll probably return to it at some point in the future. I enjoyed it WAY more than 'Christopher Kirkland.'