A Study of the Life and Works of Blaze de Bury: A Counter-Narrative of a Transcultural Woman’s Involvement in Nineteenth- Century European Politics Rachel Margaret Egloff This degree is awarded by Oxford Brookes University This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted after examination in February 2020 ! ! Abstract This thesis presents evidence of female participation in nineteenth- century discourses on European international politics, using the case study of the writer Baroness Marie Pauline Rose Blaze de Bury (1813?–1894). It argues that examining Blaze de Bury’s life and works, specifically through a transcultural lens, reveals a political stance which strives for an inclusive European identity politics whilst preserving individual cultural difference. This thesis contributes to the expanding corpus of “forgotten” nineteenth-century texts and writers. It transcends a traditional national and gender scope by providing a counter-narrative to the discourse about women’s involvement in nineteenth-century politics, focusing on the transcultural and gender-hybrid aspects of Blaze de Bury’s European life and works. It includes findings from both primary archival research and historical contextualisation. Blaze de Bury’s texts are placed in historical literary and non-literary contexts which reveal British perceptions of the European cultural and political atmosphere. Furthermore, this thesis sets out a new impulse for the developing transcultural approach in Victorian literary studies, namely Blaze de Bury’s engagement with politics within Europe. This study of a transcultural consciousnes in Blaze de Bury’s texts offers a timely contribution to the discussion of English/British/European identity by revealing her engagement with the tension between cultural homogeneity and difference within Europe. This endeavour incorporates a historical and theoretical engagement with the transcultural concept. Particular focus lies on genre-hybridity, and intertextual translation and multilingualism. This study presents not only a writer outside of the canon but also a transcultural female writer of “unfeminine” politics. ! i ! ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to Professor Nicole Pohl and Dr Tatiana Kontou for supervising this project and for offering their invaluable advice and support throughout. I am also indebted to Dr Caroline Jackson-Houlston for her encouragement and supervision at the beginning of this project. Much inspiration for this thesis was gathered at conferences. My thanks therefore also go to the British Association for Victorian Studies, the Victorian Popular Fiction Association, and the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals. I am grateful to the staff of the University College London special collections archives, the University of Newcastle special collections, the Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, the Western Manuscripts at the British Library, the National Portrait Gallery, the Rare Books and Manuscripts at Pennsylvania State University, the Browning Library at Baylor University, the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, the Pestalozzi Bibliotheken Zürich, and to Frank Teske of the Stadtarchiv Mainz. I am indebted and most grateful to the Earl of Westmoreland for granting copy right permission for his ancestors’ correspondence held at University College London special collections. My thanks go to the always helpful library staff, to my supportive colleagues in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and to the effective Graduate College at Oxford Brookes University - particularly my colleague Alison Baxter and John Eibner who kindly shared their ongoing research. My thanks go to Dr Barbara Giroud (Oxford Brookes University) and Aurel Sieber (Hochschule der Künste Bern), who offered their expert advice on my French-to-English and German-to-English translations. Further thanks go to my always supportive family and friends, without whose unwavering encouragement I would not have embarked on or completed this project. Florian, without all your brilliantly wonderful facets this thesis would not be what it is. Thank you. ! iii Table of Contents Abstract....................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements….................................................................................iii Table of Contents…................................................................................... iv List of Tables…........................................................................................... v List of Figures…......................................................................................... v Introduction ................................................................................ 1! a. Rose Blaze de Bury: ‘Eine der merkwürdigsten Persönlichkeiten’ ................................................... 1! b. Transcultural Perspectives Conveyed by a Gender-Hybrid Voice .............................................................................. 6! c. Aims, Methodology, Remarks, and Structure ............................ 9! 1. A Transcultural Approach and Gender Hybridity: Theory and Terminology .................................................................. 21! 1.a. Terminology and Theory ...................................................... 24! 1.a.i. National and Cultural .......................................................... 25! 1.a.ii. Inter-/Multicultural, Globalism, Cosmopolitanism .............. 30! 1.a.iii. Comparative Literature and World Literature..................... 34! 1.a.iv. A Transcultural Approach and (Post-)Colonial Studies ...... 40! 1.b. The European Context ......................................................... 46! 1.c. Women’s Writing and Gender Hybridity .............................. 53! Part 1 ......................................................................................... 62! 2. Blaze de Bury: A European Political Life and Network ..... 63! 2.a. Blaze de Bury: Life and Undertakings .................................. 66! 2.b. Blaze de Bury: Network ....................................................... 75! 2.c. National, Cultural, Transcultural?......................................... 89! 2.c.i. British Perceptions of Germany and France ......................... 90! 2.c.ii. A ‘Frenchified Englishwoman’? ......................................... 96! 3. A ‘masculine female political intrigante’: The Reception of Blaze de Bury ...................................................................... 101! 3.a. Nineteenth-Century Publishing for Women ........................ 102! 3.a.i Choosing Signatures: Anonymous, Pseudonymous, or Personal ......................................................................................... 107! 3.b. The Reception of Blaze de Bury’s Work in the Press ......... 116! 3.b.i. Male Pseudonyms: Mildred Vernon and Léonie Vermont .. 118! 3.b.ii. Anonymous: ‘The Political Press: French, British and German’ and ‘The Austrian Empire in 1862’..................... 131! 3.b.iii. Personal: Germania and Falkenburg ................................ 135! Part 2 ....................................................................................... 145! 4. From Travel Fact to Travel Fiction: Genre Hybridity ...... 146! 4.a. Blaze de Bury and Genre.................................................... 147! 4.a.i. Genre Hybridity ................................................................ 149! 4.a.ii. Travel Writing and Genre Hybridity ................................. 152! 4.a.iii. Women, Travel, and Genre .............................................. 154! 4.b. From Travel Fact to Travel Fiction? ................................... 157! 4.b.i. Blaze de Bury in Germany: Travel Writing and Popular Fiction .............................................................................. 159! ! iv 4.b.ii. A Transcultural objective through Travel ..........................168! 5. Transcultural European Texts? .......................................... 178! 5.a. Novel of the Nation, Novel of Europe? ............................... 182! 5.a.i. Views on the “English” Novel ...........................................183! 5.a.ii. The “French” Novel in Britain ..........................................184! 5.a.iii. The “German” Novel in Britain .......................................188! 5.a.iv. European and National Novels .........................................191! 5.b. Blaze de Bury’s Transcultural Novels ................................. 193! 5.b.i. Intertextual Multilingualism and Translation in the Transcultural Novel...........................................................194! 5.b.ii. Authorial Gender-Hybridity in the Transcultural Novel.....203! 6. Britain and the Other – Britain as the Other ..................... 209! 6.a. Difference and Homogeneity in Europe and Empire ........... 215! 6.b. Fear of the Hybrid European ............................................... 227! 6.b.i. Gazing at the Oriental, the Animal, and the Supernatural Other.................................................................................229! Conclusion ............................................................................... 241! Bibliography ............................................................................ 249! Part 1: Blaze de Bury’s Bibliography ........................................ 249! Part 2: Archival Resources .......................................................