Overview

Shedding new light on the alternative, emancipatory Germany discovered and written about by progressive women writers during the long nineteenth century, this illuminating study uncovers a country that offered a degree of freedom and intellectual agency unheard of in England. Opening with the striking account of Anna Jameson and her friendship with Ottilie von Goethe, Linda K. Hughes shows how cultural differences spurred ten writers' advocacy of progressive ideas and provided fresh materials for publishing careers. Alongside well-known writers – Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Michael Field, Elizabeth von Arnim, and Vernon Lee – this study sheds light on the lesser-known writers Mary and Anna Mary Howitt, Jessie Fothergill, and the important Anglo-Jewish lesbian writer Amy Levy. Armed with their knowledge of the German language, each of these women championed an extraordinarily productive openness to cultural exchange and, by approaching Germany through a female lens, imported an alternative, 'other' Germany into English letters.

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9781009069328

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Reviews

'well written asnd researched' Rosemary Ashton, Times Literary Supplement '… well written and researched, Linda Hughes's book consists of a set of essays connected by the surprisingly rich and diverse group of nineteenth-century women writers and travellers who interacted with Germany and its literature and culture … Some of the best insights in Hughes's book come in the passages on Anna Jameson, who deserves the detailed attention shereceives here as a pioneer of lone womanhood travelling, discussing and writing about Germany, particularly its art.' Rosemary Ashton, The Times Literary Supplement '… detailed, nuanced and extremely readable.' Flore Janssen, Victorian Popular Fictions '… an impressive work, scholarly and readable, a collective intellectual and artistic biography that weaves together its ten subjects in illuminating and revelatory ways. Scholars of these authors should certainly consult Hughes's work, and students of the global nineteenth century will want to consider her account of how these Victorian women's German experiences shaped their sense of themselves as citizens of the world.' Anne DeWitt, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 'excellent' Colton Valentine, Style 'The achievement of Hughes's book, founded on consummate scholarship, documented history, and piercing critical insight, is to shed new light on the richly complex lives of her ten subjects, as well as their shared attraction to [the] country.' James Diedrick, Victorian Studies 'Linda K. Hughes brings Anglo-German literary relations to the foreground of this ambitious study[, which] traces the increasing mobility, independence, and cosmopolitanism of successive generations of women writers who worked in conversation with their German counterparts and were immeasurably enriched by the exchange.' Joanne Shattock, Victorian Periodicals Review

Author Information

Linda K. Hughes is Addie Levy Professor of Literature at Texas Christian University. She edited The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and has published extensively on long nineteenth century literature, culture, and women's and gender studies. Her earlier books include The Cambridge Introduction to Victorian Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Graham R.: Rosamund Marriott Watson, Woman of Letters (2005), which received the Colby Prize.

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