Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century

Edited by Tiffany Potter

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Published: May 2014

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Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Page Count: 342 Pages

Dimensions: 6.08 x 9.00

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342 Pages, 6.08 x 9.00 x 0.93 in

Paperback

$45.95

ISBN: 9781442626911

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Description
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In contemporary pop culture, the pursuits regarded as the most frivolous are typically understood to be more feminine in nature than masculine. This collection illustrates how ideas of the popular and the feminine were assumed to be equally naturally intertwined in the eighteenth century, and the ways in which that association facilitates the ongoing trivialization of both.

Top scholars in eighteenth-century studies examine the significance of the parallel devaluations of women's culture and popular culture by looking at theatres and actresses; novels, magazines, and cookbooks; and populist politics, dress, and portraiture. They also assess how eighteenth-century women have been re-imagined in contemporary historical fiction, films, and television, from the works of award-winner Beryl Bainbridge to Darcymania and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. By reconsidering the cultural and social practices of eighteenth-century women, this fascinating volume reclaims the ostensibly trivial as a substantive cultural contribution.

Tiffany Potter teaches eighteenth-century British and American literature at the University of British Columbia. Her most recent book is the edited collection Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface

I Performance, Fashion, and the Politics of the Popular
1 Historicizing the Popular and the Feminine: The Rape of the Lock and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Tiffany Potter, UBC)
2 'The Assemblage of every female Folly': Lavinia Fenton, Kitty Clive and the Genesis of Ballad Opera (Berta Joncus)
3 Politics and Gender in a Tale of Two Plays (Paula Backscheider)
4 Celebrity Status: The Eighteenth-Century Actress as Fashion Icon (Jessica Munns)
5 Fanning the Flames: Women and Politics (Elaine Chalus)

II Women, Reading, and Writing
6 The Culinary Art of Eighteenth-Century Women Cookbook Authors (Robert James Merrett)
7 Women and Letters (Isobel Grundy)
8 Writing Bodies in Popular Culture: Eliza Haywood and Love in Excess (Holly Luhning)
9 Women Reading and Writing for The Rambler (Peter Sabor)
10 'The Most Dangerous Talent': Riddles as Feminine Pastime (Mary Chadwick)
11 Comic Prints, the Picturesque and Fashion: Seeing and Being Seen in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (Timothy Erwin)

III Eighteenth-Century Women in Modern Popular Culture
12 Mother and Daughter in Beryl Bainbridge's According to Queeney (Martha F. Bowden)
13 The Agency of Things in Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin (Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace)
14 'Would you have us laughed out of Bath?': Shopping Around for Fashion and Fashionable Fiction in Jane Austen Adaptations (Tamara S. Wagner)
15 Visualizing Empire in Domestic Settings: Designing Persuasion for the Screen (Andrew Macdonald and Gina Macdonald)
16 From Pride and Prejudice to Lost in Austen and Back Again: Reading Television Reading Novels (Claire Grogan)

Contributors
Index

‘Tiffany Potter is an accomplished and respected scholar with considerable editorial expertise. In Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century, she has gathered together a wealth of essays by an international group of leading scholars working in the field of eighteenth-century studies. Each chapter is accomplished and well written, displaying excellent work on a diverse range of topics.’ Jennie Batchelor, Reader in Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Kent

‘I read Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century with interest and pleasure: the essays are of a very high quality, accessibly written, and will be useful to teachers on a variety of courses.’ Norma Clarke, Professor of English and Creative Writing, Kingston University

Gender Studies / Women's Studies

Literary Studies / English Literature (18th century)

History / Women's History