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Julia Wedgwood, The Unexpected Victorian

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08 March 2022
Though Julia Wedgwood is still remembered as a commentator on the work of her uncle, Charles Darwin, and for her brief but intense friendship with Browning, her contemporary standing as a writer (“the thoughtful woman par excellence”) has been obscured as has her role in the pioneering days of women’s higher education and the first campaigns for female suffrage. Based on her extensive correspondence and unusually wide-ranging work, this biography unites the private person and the public writer. It also looks at her many relationships with leading Victorian cultural figures including not only Darwin and Browning but George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe, F. D. Maurice, Richard Hutton, Arthur Munby and the young E. M. Forster. It considers the challenges facing a single, deaf Victorian woman in establishing her own independent, but unconventional, life.

LITERARY CRITICISM / Women Authors, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, HISTORY / Women, Biography: writers

Brown effectively situates Wedgwood within the milieu of the periodical press during the latter half of the long nineteenth century. Her reclamation work succeeds in large part because of her focus on Wedgwood’s active role as a contributor to Victorian periodicals.— Victorian Periodicals
List of Illustrations; Introduction: ‘The Formidable Snowie’; Part I The Education of Julia Wedgwood Chapter One A Brilliant Child; Chapter Two Mentors, Friends and Pioneers; Chapter Three Waiting; Chapter Four The Young Novelist; Part II Great Men and Female Friends Chapter Five The Promise of Darwinism; Chapter Six ‘The Era of My Life’; Chapter Seven A Woman’s World; Chapter Eight The Responsibilities of the Poet; Part III Becoming a Woman of Letters Chapter Nine Finding a Voice; Chapter Ten A Forgotten Feminist; Chapter Eleven Doubt and the Fallibility of Idols; Chapter Twelve Domestic Contentment; Chapter Thirteen Coming to Terms with Darwin and His Legacy; Part IV The ‘Thoughtful Woman Par Excellence’ Chapter Fourteen The Message of Julia Wedgwood; Chapter Fifteen ‘The Old Order Changeth’; Chapter Sixteen ‘A Satisfi ed Guest’; Acknowledgements; Notes; Bibliography; Index