As a prolific nineteenth-century novelist, Thomas Hardy witnessed how women were treated as well as the dreadful conditions in which they lived. Well aware of the nineteenth-century limitations on femininity, Hardy stood for women's downtrodden rights. Henceforth, so as to examine Hardy's personal thoughts and impressions towards the prevailing…

Kate Chopin's once-banned novel explores Edna Pontellier's resistance to the 19th-century Victorian norm for womanhood in order to show at least one woman's identity could not be realized within the prescribed sex roles of her culture. (Editor)

Argues for the study of popular female authors of the Victorian era on two grounds: (1) issues concerning Victorian female writers are relevant to problems in Victorian literary scholarship and to discussions about the relationship between literary theory and feminism; and (2) their works were printed on acid paper. (TB)

A case study designed to provide a picture of sex stereotypes in Europe and America before and after the industrial revolution. Qualities most often exhibited and admired by Victorian men and women are described. (Author/DB)

In her novel "Work," through the character of Rachel and her story, Louise May Alcott confronts many of the issues facing both "fallen" women and the social reformers of her day. Rachel, one of the sisterhood of the fallen, becomes an instrument of social reform after having been the victim of the sham respectability of her…

By examining two autobiographies by Victorian women, the role of editors in the composing and publishing of autobiographical texts can be explored, and questions can be raised about the way personal writing is assigned, edited, and evaluated in classrooms today. The autobiography of Margaret Oliphant, a prolific Victorian novelist and critic, was…