View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sussex Research Online A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details The Regulation of Female Identity in the Novels of Florence Marryat Catherine Pope Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex January 2014 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: ……………………………………… Acknowledgements Thank you to Helen Webb from the Research Support Team in the Sussex Library, who helped get me started with my research. Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire provided uninterrupted calm, without which I could never have conquered this thesis, and the London Library kindly gave me a Thomas Carlyle membership and sent many really bad Victorian novels through the post. The staff at the Public Record Office helped me navigate Marryat’s complicated life, and the assistance of the staff of the British Library’s manuscript room, particularly Greg Buzwell, was greatly appreciated. Simone Hull, Florence Marryat’s great-great-great-granddaughter illuminated some murky aspects of her ancestor’s remarkable life, while Donald Bittner contributed useful information on Francis Lean. I am also grateful to the Beinecke Library at Yale University for scanning and sending documents from the Marryat Family Papers. Thank you to Tom Sargant for sharing with me the contents of an Edwardian maid’s suitcase, which concealed a bundle of Marryat novels, and to Juliana Stewart for her boundless enthusiasm (even though most of the time she didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was on about). My supervisor, Jenny Bourne Taylor, repeatedly reminded me this was a good idea and supplied invaluable critical insight and encouragement. Lindsay Smith and Laura Vellacott kept my stress levels to a minimum during the final stages of writing up. Most importantly, thank you to my partner Tanya for her unfailing support and for sharing my belief that a week in a residential library constitutes a holiday. Summary This thesis evaluates the contribution to Victorian literary and cultural debate of Florence Marryat (1833-99) a prolific and varied writer yet to receive sustained critical attention. Specifically, I examine her many fictional representations of the legal, medical, and religious regulation of female identity in novels published between 1865 and 1899. I argue that Marryat goes further than other contemporary writers in subverting gender norms and theorising in fiction a transgressive female. By considering Marryat’s output in relation to comparator authors, I demonstrate how her work represents a uniquely radical protest, anticipating and prefiguring the New Woman writing of the fin de siècle. I also show how Marryat appropriates different styles of rhetoric to expose and challenge various mid-Victorian notions of ‘woman’ constructed for the purposes of regulation. By representing and then challenging the regulation of female identity, Marryat’s novels provide an important insight into how Victorian gender roles were constructed. My research shows that her work constitutes an effective protest against this regulation, evidenced by the critical response which attempted to undermine her reputation and arguments. I examine these criticisms in detail, showing how Marryat’s novels became a space in which she engaged with her critics, thereby pushing literary and gender boundaries. By bringing critical insight and contextual knowledge to close readings of Marryat’s novels, I reveal the feminist meaning hitherto occluded by literary regulation and subsequent superficial interpretations. Through extensive archival research, I also explain how Marryat used her own experiences to educate her readers, often appearing as a character in the novels. I propose that this direct relationship with her audience, presenting feminist ideas in a quasi-polemical style, makes Marryat’s oeuvre distinctive and worthy of further consideration. While Marryat is often considered a writer of ephemeral romances, I establish her as an early feminist who questioned and subverted nineteenth-century notions of femininity. List of Figures 1. The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti ……………………………………… 140 2. Daniel Dunglas Home ………………………………………………………………… 154 Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 The Spectacle of Femininity: Women Sensation Novelists ................................................................... 4 Florence Marryat: The Critical Story So Far .......................................................................................... 11 The Life and Career of Florence Marryat .............................................................................................. 13 A Victorian Feminist? ................................................................................................................................ 25 Regulating Female Identity: A Critical Approach ................................................................................. 26 Chapter One: ‘Is a toad worth painting?’ – The Regulation of Marryat’s Writing ............................... 30 ‘The Illiterate Censorship of a Librarian’: The Power of Mudie ........................................................ 32 ‘A Pen Dipped in Vinegar and Gall’: The Publisher’s Reader ............................................................ 38 ‘A Veil Between Book and Reader’: The Role of the Periodical Reviewer....................................... 44 The Athenaeum: A ‘Mirror of Victorian Culture’ ............................................................................... 48 ‘Moral Earnestness’ and ‘Blameless Sobriety’ in the Spectator ......................................................... 51 Woman Against Woman in the Saturday Review ................................................................................ 54 ‘Intruding Her Own Personality’: Marryat’s Ongoing Relationship with Critics ............................. 56 Chapter Two: ‘The chains that gall them’ – The Legal Regulation of Marryat’s heroines ................. 61 Who pays for the butter? Marryat and Marriage ................................................................................... 63 ‘Entirely Different Creations’: The Matrimonial Causes Act and the Sexual Double Standard ... 66 ‘An Entire Subversion of Domestic Rule’: The Married Women’s Property Acts ......................... 74 ‘Grounded on Force’: Marital Violence in Marryat’s Fiction .............................................................. 82 Chapter Three – ‘Are you going to cut me up?’ – The Regulation of Women’s Bodies .................... 93 The Conflation of Medical and Patriarchal Authority ......................................................................... 94 ‘A bad imitation of a man’: Women Doctors ...................................................................................... 101 ‘The torture of the damned’: Regulating the Vivisector .................................................................... 105 The Pathologisation of Female Sexuality ............................................................................................. 113 2 Chapter Four: ‘Undomesticated and remarkably mobile’ – Spiritual Rebellion in Marryat’s Fiction ......................................................................................................................................................................... 125 Our Mother Who Art in Heaven - The Virgin Mary ......................................................................... 129 The “Divine Mother” in My Own Child ................................................................................................ 131 “A Bitter Penance”: Neglected Spirituality in The Dead Man’s Message ............................................ 138 Spectral Politics: Spiritualism and Power ............................................................................................. 143 “It isn’t all jam to have a medium in the house”: The female authoritative voice in The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs ............................................................................................................... 148 Vested Interests: Hyperfemininity and Homosexuality in Open! Sesame! ......................................... 150 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 157 3 Introduction My thesis evaluates the contribution to Victorian literary and cultural debate of Florence Marryat (1833-99), a prolific and varied writer yet to receive sustained critical attention. Specifically, I examine her many fictional representations of legal, medical, and religious regulation