Woman's Work in English Fiction, from the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period

by Clara Helen Whitmore

Woman's Work in
English Fiction

From the Restoration to the
Mid-Victorian Period

By

Clara H. Whitmore, A.M.

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1910

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Copyright, 1909
BY
CLARA H. WHITMORE
The Knickerbocker Press, New York

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PREFACE

The writings of many of the women considered in this volume have sunk into an oblivion from which their intrinsic merit should have preserved them. This is partly due to the fact that nearly all the books on literature have been written from a man's stand-point. While in other arts the tastes of men and women vary little, the choice of novels is to a large degree determined by sex. Many men who acknowledge unhesitatingly that Jane Austen is superior as an artist to Smollett, will find more pleasure in the breezy adventures of Roderick Random than in the drawing-room atmosphere of Emma; while no woman can read a novel of Smollett's without loathing, although she must acknowledge that the Scottish writer is a man of genius.