1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910777925603321

Autore

Denlinger Elizabeth Campbell

Titolo

Before Victoria [[electronic resource] ] : extraordinary women of the British Romantic era / / by Elizabeth Campbell Denlinger ; foreword by Lyndall Gordon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York Public Library, : Columbia University Press, 2005

ISBN

0-231-50993-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (208 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

GordonLyndall

Disciplina

305.4/0941/09034

Soggetti

Women - Great Britain

Great Britain History 1789-1820 Biography

Great Britain History 1800-1837 Biography

Great Britain Social conditions 18th century

Great Britain Social conditions 19th century

Great Britain Biography

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Before Victoria: extraordinary women of the British Romantic era, presented at the New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Library, D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall, April 8-July 30, 2005"--T.p. verso.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-180) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Mary Robinson, eighteenth-century romantic -- Exemplary women : Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, and their worlds -- Not quite good enough : three imperfect lives -- The modern Venus, or improper ladies, and others -- Strong passions of the mind : women in literature and the visual arts -- Rational dames and ladies on horseback : scientists and travelers -- The youngest romantics -- The Pforzheimer Collection and its female inhabitants : an afterword.

Sommario/riassunto

It might not have the been the revolution that Mary Wollstonecraft called for in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), but the Romantic era did witness a dramatic change in women's lives. Combining literary and cultural history, this richly illustrated volume brings back to life a remarkable, though frequently overlooked, group of women who transformed British culture and inspired new ways of



understanding feminine roles and female sexuality. What was this revolution like? Women were expected to be more moral, more constrained, and more private than in the eighteenth century, when women such as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire crafted bold public personas. Genteel women no longer laughed aloud at bawdy jokes and noblewomen ran charity bazaars instead of private casinos. By 1800, motherhood had become a sacred calling and women who could afford to do so devoted themselves to the home. While this idealization of domesticity kept some women off the streets, it afforded others new opportunities. Often working from home, women wrote novels and poetry, sculpted busts, painted portraits, and conducted scientific research. They also seized the chance to do good, and crafted new public roles for themselves as philanthropists and reformers. Now-obscure female astronomers, photographers, sculptors, and mathematicians share these pages with celebrated writers such as Mary Shelley, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Robinson, who in addition to being a novelist and actress was also the mistress of the Prince of Wales. This book also makes full use of The New York Public Library's extensive collections, including graphic works and caricatures from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, manuscripts, hand-colored illustrations, broadsides, drawings, oil paintings, notebooks, albums and early photographs. These vivid, beautiful, and often humorous images depict these women, their works, and their social and domestic worlds.