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Sowing the Wind
St John Aylott's life is in turmoil. With his social status already under threat, even his virtuous wife Isola is questioning his authority. Influenced by her tomboyish cousin, journalist Jane Osborn, who provides female solidarity and strong opinions, Isola fights to assert her subjectivity over a tyrannical husband; meanwhile Jane is forced to adjust to the masculine world of work on a daily newspaper.
Sowing the Wind was Eliza Lynn Linton's first critically successful novel. Written during the breakdown of her marriage, it is openly, and often painfully, autobiographical. With its themes of inheritance, concealed identity, madness, and domestic violence, Linton's novel epitomises the sensation genre.
The Athenaeum reviewer concluded: “The primary idea of the book is ingenious, and it is consistently kept in view throughout the narrative. We recommend readers in search of an uncommon novel to send for Sowing the Wind.” The Saturday Review was terrified by the “dark hints of what would happen if women, instead of men, had the making of the laws”.
This edition includes a critical introduction, explanatory footnotes, bibliography, and additional contextual material.
Sowing the Wind was Eliza Lynn Linton's first critically successful novel. Written during the breakdown of her marriage, it is openly, and often painfully, autobiographical. With its themes of inheritance, concealed identity, madness, and domestic violence, Linton's novel epitomises the sensation genre.
The Athenaeum reviewer concluded: “The primary idea of the book is ingenious, and it is consistently kept in view throughout the narrative. We recommend readers in search of an uncommon novel to send for Sowing the Wind.” The Saturday Review was terrified by the “dark hints of what would happen if women, instead of men, had the making of the laws”.
This edition includes a critical introduction, explanatory footnotes, bibliography, and additional contextual material.
- Genres19th Century
356 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1867
28 people want to read
About the author
Eliza Lynn Linton
141 books9 followersNote 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 2, 2020
"These objectless, luxurious days of hers weighed on her like imprisonment or spiritual death; and her soul cried out for the freer air of human sympathy and work, of even suffering, as a relief from the cloying sweetness of the present time."
From a writer infamous for her later anti-feminist caricatures, this novel was an unexpected source of ruminations on the toxicity of possessive love and domestic isolation, and the value of work, independence, and a larger social life for women. It was also blatantly white supremacist and eugenicist in its representation of one of the few women of color characters I've come across in Victorian popular fiction (and in its genetic inheritance plots overall). It was incredibly useful for my dissertation (and likely would be worthwhile for other scholars/enthusiasts of the period's culture and history), but I wouldn't recommend it for pleasure reading!
From a writer infamous for her later anti-feminist caricatures, this novel was an unexpected source of ruminations on the toxicity of possessive love and domestic isolation, and the value of work, independence, and a larger social life for women. It was also blatantly white supremacist and eugenicist in its representation of one of the few women of color characters I've come across in Victorian popular fiction (and in its genetic inheritance plots overall). It was incredibly useful for my dissertation (and likely would be worthwhile for other scholars/enthusiasts of the period's culture and history), but I wouldn't recommend it for pleasure reading!
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January 15, 2016Fiction L761s 2015
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews