New Contexts ― Re-Framing Nineteenth-Century Irish Women's Prose

This important collection contains new readings of the prose works of nineteenth-century Irish women. The contributors, a wide-ranging group of international scholars, place this writing in new contexts and through these rediscovered women’s literary perspectives offer a fresh view of the nineteenth century. Among the authors examined are: Elizabeth Hamilton, Lady Blessington, Selina Bunbury, Mrs. Hungerford, M.E. Francis, Lily McManus, Sommerville and Ross.

Looking at writers who have been previously ignored in Irish Studies, the contributors draw attention to women’s participation in literary genres commonly associated with male writers. They also examine prose writing that does not fit the usual categories. Reading nineteenth-century Irish women’s works according to the main themes that emerge in the novels and texts—not according to any overarching principle based on aesthetic or ideological criteria—means that the contexts in which women’s writing are usually understood are often changed. The designation Irish is widened so that writers whose works were important in Ireland but who themselves did not live there have been included, although most of the writers discussed lived in various parts of Ireland.