images of the woman reader in victorian british and american fiction Copyright 2003 by Catherine J. Golden. This work is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No De- rivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to electronically copy, distribute, and transmit this work if you attribute authorship. However, all printing rights are reserved by the University Press of Florida (http://www.upf.com). Please contact UPF for information about how to obtain copies of the work for print distribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they en- dorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the University Press of Florida. Nothing in this license impairs or re- stricts the author’s moral rights. Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers Florida International University, Miami Florida State University, Tallahassee University of Central Florida, Orlando University of Florida, Gainesville University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola university press of florida Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers Images of the Woman Reader in Victorian British and American Fiction catherine j. golden Copyright 2003 by Catherine J. Golden Printed in the United States of America on recycled, acid-free paper All rights reserved 08 07 06 05 04 03 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Golden, Catherine. Images of the woman reader in Victorian British and American fiction / Catherine J. Golden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8130-2679-2 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. English fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Women—Books and reading—Great Britain—History—19th century. 3. Women—Books and reading—United States—History—19th century. 4. Women and literature— Great Britain—History—19th century. 5. Women and literature—United States—History—19th century. 6. American fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 7. Books and reading in literature. 8. Women in literature. I. Title. PR878.W6G65 2003 8 3'.809352042—dc22 2003057914 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 15 Northwest 15th Street Gainesville, FL 32611-2079 http://www.upf.com For my parents, Nancy and Lawrence Golden, who nurtured my love of reading Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Introduction 1 part i. a historical overview 1. Women Readers and Reading in Victorian Britain and America 17 part ii. fictional representations of the woman reader 2. Transatlantic Representations of the Woman Reader: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868, 1869), and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) 51 3. Prophetic Reading: Maggie Tulliver of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860) 79 4. Romance Consumers: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Doctor’s Wife (1864) 96 5. The Case for Compatibility: Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814), George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872), and Mona Caird’s The Daughters of Danaus (1894) 117 part iii. illustrations of the woman reader 6. An Illustrative Gallery of Victorian British and American Women Readers: The Illustrated Fiction of Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Anthony Trollope 139 7. The Book as Portal: Depictions of the Mind Traveler in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures under Ground (1864) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892) 187 8. “What Is the Use of a Book?” Becky Sharp as Revolutionary Reader in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848) 202 Conclusion 225 Notes 233 Bibliography 265 Index 279 Illustrations 1. George Cruikshank, “My Wife Is a Woman of Mind” 2 2. Eastman Johnson, Bo-Peep 25 3. James Gillray, “Tales of Wonder!” 33 4. Winslow Homer, The New Novel 38 5. Thomas Bewick, tailpiece to “Razor-Bill” 56 6. Thomas Bewick, tailpiece to “Black-Throated Diver” 57 7. G. M. Brighty, “Ducking a Witch” 83 8. Hablot Knight Browne, “Uriah Persists in Hovering Near Us, at the Dinner Party” 144 9. Hablot Knight Browne, “A Stranger Calls to See Me” 145 10. Hablot Knight Browne, “Our Housekeeping” 147 11. Hablot Knight Browne, “The Shadow in the Little Parlour” 149 12. George Cruikshank, “Rose Maylie and Oliver” 150 13. Hablot Knight Browne, “Under the Plane Tree” 151 14. E. A., “‘But Fit with Their Tongues, Fearful’” 154 15. Charlotte Harding, “Algy” 155 16. Frank T. Merrill, “They All Drew to the Fire, Mother in the Big Chair, with Beth to Her Feet” 158 17. Jessie Willcox Smith, “They All Drew to the Fire” 159 18. Jessie Willcox Smith, “A Rainy Day” 161 19. Frank T. Merrill, “Reading That Everlasting Belsham” 163 20. Reginald B. Birch, “The Villagers Did Not Stand in Awe of Her” 165 21. F. O. C. Darley, “But Evangeline Knelt by His Bedside” 166 22. E. W. Kemble, “Learning about Moses and the ‘Bulrushers’” 169 23. Worth Brehm, “Then She Told Me about the Bad Place, and I Said I Wished I Was There” 171 x Illustrations 24. True Williams, “Aunt Polly Seeks Information” 172 25. Hablot Knight Browne, “Traddles and I, in Conference with the Misses Spenlow” 175 26. Hablot Knight Browne, “The Momentous Interview” 176 27. Howard Chandler Christy, “She Was a Woman Now” 179 28. Henry Sandham, “She Spent Most of Her Time in the Library Reading Her Papa’s Big Books” 180 29. Sir John Everett Millais, “The Angel of Light” 182 30. Frank T. Merrill, “Curling Herself Up in the Big Chair” 184 31. Lewis Carroll, chapter 1 headpiece, Alice’s Adventures under Ground 190 32. Jo. H. Hatfield, “I Am Sitting by the Window in this Atrocious Nursery” 194 33. Jo. H. Hatfield, “She Didn’t Know I Was in the Room” 195 34. William Makepeace Thackeray, pictorial capital for chapter 64, from Vanity Fair 203 35. William Makepeace Thackeray, “Rebecca’s Farewell” 207 36. William Makepeace Thackeray, “It Was the Death-Warrant” 210 37. William Makepeace Thackeray, “Miss Sharp in Her Schoolroom” 212 38. William Makepeace Thackeray, “She Took Up the Black-Edged Missive” 214 39. William Makepeace Thackeray, “Becky in Lombard Street” 218 40. William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Letter before Waterloo” 221 41. William Makepeace Thackeray, “Lieutenant Osborne and His Ardent Love-Letters” 223 42. Franz Robert Richard Brend’amour, “In the Library” 226 Preface xi Preface I come from a long line of reading women. My most vivid memory of my maternal grandmother, Elsie Cohen Posmantur, is of her reading a novel with a box of chocolates by her side. The candy box came with a directory, but Grandma Elsie read less discriminatingly than she chose her choco- lates. A member of the Book of the Month Club from its earliest days, Elsie sampled classics, best-sellers, mysteries, and romances along with choco- late creams, a regular part of her diet. When Grandma Elsie died, my mother and I sorted through her large collection of books, some of which I own today. Not only Elsie’s books but also her love of reading are a legacy my grandmother left for her children and her grandchildren. Not surprisingly, my mother, Nancy Posmantur Golden, is an avid reader, a passion kindled in childhood. Growing up, my mother spent sum- mers at the beach in Fort Erie, Canada, across from her home in Buffalo, New York. Most fine mornings at low tide, she set off to read for the day. Carrying a bag filled with books and a sack lunch, she spent hours reading on the rocky Canadian shoreline. Only with the rise of the tide did she break her literary reverie to return home. If I close my eyes, I can see her now: a skinny girl with long red braids trailing down her back, wearing glasses against her father’s wishes (he thought glasses would spoil her looks), eagerly consuming books—a trope I consciously borrow from the Victorian period. My mother’s most beloved childhood books are classics: L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series and Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. Sometimes Grandma Elsie used a scary voice when she read Baum aloud to my mother, and my mother cried. The world of fiction seemed that real to my mother, as it still does to me today. My mother, in turn, read me The Little Engine That Could, Charlotte’s Web, Heidi, My Friend Flicka, and Rascal. Even now, in her seventies, my mother audits courses at the University of Buffalo. The ideal student, Nancy always keeps up with her reading and passes along xii Preface reading suggestions to me and my father. On my visits home, I often find my mother, like her mother before her, absorbed in the lives of those exist- ing solely within the pages of a book. My mother presented me with a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- land that her nanny, called “Nursie,” gave her when she was a child.