The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

Selected Bibliography of Background on Victorian
Social History, Sexuality, and the Lives of Women:

Adams, Carol. Ordinary Lives A Hundred Years Ago. L: Virago, 1982.

Alexander, Sally. Women's Work in Nineteenth-Century London: A Study of the Years 1820-50. L: Journeyman Press, 1983.

Banks, J. A. Prosperity and Parenthood: A Study of Family Planning among the Victorian Middle Classes. L: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954.

Banks, J. A. and Olive. Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England. N Y: Schocken, 1964.

Banks, Olive. The Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement. N Y: St. Martin's Press, 1981.

Bauer, Carol and Lawrence Ritt. Free and Ennobled: Source Readings in the Development of Victorian Feminism. N Y: Pergamon, 1979.

Benjamin, Marina, ed. Science and Sensibility: Gender and Scientific Enquiry, 1780-1945. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1991.

Branca, Patricia. Silent Sisterhood. Middle Class Women in the Victorian Home. L: 1975.

Burnett, John. The Annals of Labor. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1974. Also Destiny Obscure: Autobiographies of Childhood, Education and Family from the 1820s to the 1900s. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1982.

Burnett, John. A History of the Cost of Living. Penguin, 1969.

Burstyn, Joan. Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood. L: Croom Helm, 1980.

Chaudhuri, Nupur and Margaret Strobel. "Western Women and Imperialism." Special Issue, Women's Studies International Forum 13.4 (1990). Contains articles: Antoinette Burton, "The White Woman's Burden: British Feminists and The Indian Woman, 1865-1915," and others on British women in India.

Chinn, Carl. They Worked All Their Lives: Women of the Urban Poor in England, 1880-1939. Manchester and N Y: Manchester U P, 1988.

Crosby, Christina. The Ends of History: Victorians and "The Woman Question." London: Routledge, 1991.

Delamont, Sara and Lorna Duffin, ed. The Nineteenth-Century Woman: Her Cultural and Physical World. L: Croom Helm, 1978. Contains chapters on invalidism, education, evolution.

Dotterer, Ronald and Susan Bowers, eds. Sexuality, the Female Gaze, and the Arts: Women, the Arts, and Society. London: Associate UP; Selingsgrove, PA: Susquehana UP, 1992.

Dyhouse, Carol. Feminism and the Family in England 1880-1939. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.

Dyhouse, Carol. No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870-1939. London: College of London P, 1995.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English. Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness. Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1973.

Finn, Margot C. After Chartism: Class and Nation in English Radical Politics, 1848-1874. Cambridge UP, 1993.

Gay, Peter. Education of the Senses: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud Oxford, 1984.

Gleadle, Kathryn. The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women's Rights Movements, 1831-1851. London: Macmillan; NY: St. Martin's, 1995.

Gorham, Deborah. The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal. Bloomington: Indiana, 1982.

Green, David. From Artisan to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London, 1790-1870. Aldershot, England: Scolar Press; Brookfield, VT. Ashgate Publishing Co., 1995.

Helsinger, Elizabeth K., Robin Lauterbach Sheets, William Veeder, The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and America, 1837-1883. N Y: Garland, 1883. Vol. II. Social Issues. Vol. Ill. Literary Issues, 1837-1883. Topics covered under "social issues" include law, science, work, and religion.

Hewitt, Margaret. Wives and Mothers in Victorian Industry. L: 1958.

Holcombe, Lee. Victorian Ladies at Work: Middle-Class Working Women in England and Wales, 1850-1914. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973.

Holcombe, Lee. Wives and Property. Reform of the Married Women's Property Law in Nineteenth Century England. Oxford, 1983.

Hollis, Patricia. Women in Public, 1850-1900. Documents of the Victorian Women’s Movement. L: 1979.

Horn, Pamela. The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant. Dublin, 1975.

Horn, Pamela. Victorian Countrywomen. Oxford: Basil Balckwell, 1991.

Jalland, Pat and John Hooper, Women from Birth to Death; The Female Life Cycle in Britain 1830-1914. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986.

Jeffreys, Sheila. The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880-1930. L and NY: Pandora, 1985.

John, Angela. By the Sweat of Their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines. L: 1980.

Kamm, Josephine. Hope Deferred. Girl’s Education in English History. L: 1965.

Kamm, Josephine. Rapiers and Battleaxes: The Women's Movement and Its Aftermath. L: George Allen and Unwin, 1966.

Kane, Penny. Victorian Families in Fact and Fiction. London: Macmillan; NY: St. Martin's, 1995.

Kanner, Barbara. Women in English Social History: 1800-1914. 3 vols. Vol. 3: "Autobiographical Writings." N Y: Garland, 1987.

Leneman, Leah. A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland. Aberdeen: Aberdeen UP, 1991.

Levine, Philippa. Feminist Lives in Victorian England: Private Roles and Public Commitment. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Lewenhek, Sheila. Women and Trade Unions: An Outline History of Women in the British Trade Union Movement. L: 1977.

Lewis, Jane. Women in England: 1870-1950, Sexual Divisions and Social Change. Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1984.

Liddington, Jill and Jill Norris. One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement. L: Virago, 1978.

Lipman, V. D. Social History of the Jews in England: 1850-1950. L: Watts, 1954.

Mackenzie, Norman and Jeanne. The Fabians. N Y: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

Mancoff, Debra N. and D. J. Trela, eds. Victorian Urban Settings: Essays on the Nineteenth-Century City and Its Contexts. NY: Garland, 1996.

Matus, Jill. Unstable Bodies: Victorian Representations of Sexuality and Maternity.

Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor. 4 vols. 1861; rpt. N Y: Dover, 1968. Vol. IV considers "Those That Will Not Work, comprising Prostitutes, Thieves, Swindlers and Beggars."

McLaren, Angus. Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England. L: 1978.

Melman, Billie. Women's Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918: Sexuality, Religion, and Work. U of Michigan P, 1992.

Moscucci, Ornella. The Science of Woman: Gyaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929. Cambridge U, 1990.

Nead, Lynda. Myths of Sexuality: Representations of Women in Victorian Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.

Neff, Wanda. Victorian Working Women: An Historical and Literary Study of Women in British Industries and Professions 1832-1850. 1929; rpt. N Y: Humanities Press, 1966.

Nord, Deborah Epstein. Walking the Victorian Streets: Women, Representation, and the City. Cornell UP, 1995.

Pearsall, Ronald. The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality. L: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969.

Perkin, Joan. Victorian Women. NYU, 1993.

-----. Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England. Chicago: Lyceum, 1989.

Purvis, Jane, ed. Women's History: Britain, 1850-1945: An Introduction. NY: St. Martin's, 1995.

Scott, Patrick and Pauline Fletcher, eds. Culture and Education in Victorian England. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP; London and Toronto: Associated UP, 1990.

Thompson, F. M. L The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain 1830-1900. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1988.

Thomson, Patricia. George Sand and the Victorians. N Y: Columbia, 1977.

Trevelyan, G. M. Illustrated English Social History: 4. Pelican Books: 1960.

Trotter, Elizabeth. Literary Women and Their Portrayals of Social History in the nineteenth Century. Devon: Merlin, 1992.

Vicinus, Martha. The Industrial Muse: A Study of Nineteenth Century British Working-Class Literature. N Y: Barnes and Noble, 1974.

Vicinus, Martha, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Bloomington: Indiana, 1972.

Vicinus, Martha, ed. A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women. Bloomington: Indiana, 1977.

Walkowitz, Judith. Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge U P, 1980.

Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. U of Chicago P, 1992.

Widdowson, Frances. Going Up into the Next Class. Women and Elementary Teacher Training, 1840-1914. L: 1980.

Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780-1950. Chatto and Windus, 1958.

Books on George Eliot:

Allen, Walter. George Eliot. N Y: Macmillan, 1964.

Atkins, Dorothy. George Eliot and Spinoza. U Salzburg, 1978.

Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot. Oxford U P, 1983. Past Masters Series. Brief but good.

Ashton, Rosemary, The German Idea: Four English Writers and the Recpetion of Gennan Thought, 1800-1860. Cambridge, 1980.

Beaty, Jerome. 'Middlemarch' from Notebook to Novel. Urbana, Illinois, 1960.

Benet, Mary Kathleen. Writers in Love. N Y: Macmillan, 1977. Contains section on Eliot and Lewes.

Bennett, Joan. George Eliot: Her Mind and Art. Cambridge U P, 1966.

Carroll, David, ed. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. London, 1971. A collection of essays.

Cross, J. W. George Eliot's Life. London: Blackwood's, 1887.

Haight, Gordon S., ed. A Century of George Eliot Criticism. London, 1966. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century criticism.

Haight, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography. Oxford U P, 1968. The standard scholarly, pre-feminist biography.

Haight, Gordon S., ed. Selections from George Eliot's Letters. Yale U P, 1985. A fine account of her life in its own right.

Hardy, Barbara. The Novels of George Eliot. Oxford U P, 1959.

Leavis, F. R. The Great Tradition. 3rd ed. N Y: N Y U, 1967. Includes famous chapter on Daniel Deronda.

Penney, Thomas, ed. Essays of George Eliot. London, 1963.

Pinion, F. B., ed. A George Eliot Miscellany: A Supplement to Her Novels. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981.

Other Women Prose Writers 1860-1900:

Byrrne, E. Fairfax (Emma Frances Brooke). The Heir Without a Heritage. L: Bentley, 1887.

Caird, Mona. The Wing of Azrael, 1889. The Daughters of Danaus. L: 1894.

Clapperton, J. H. Margaret Dunmore: Or, A Socialist Home. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1888.

Cullwick, Hannah. The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant, ed. and intro. Liz Stanley. Virago, 1984.

D'Arcy, Ella. Monochromes. L: Lane, 1895.

Egerton, George (Mary Dunne). Keynotes, 1893. Discords, 1894.

Farr, Florence. The Dancing Faun. 1894.

Ford, Isabella O. On the Threshold. London: Edward Arnold, 1895. Independent women attempt to live alone and fight convention.

Henniker, Florence. In Scarlet and Grey: Stories of Soldiers and Others .... 1896.

Lee, Vernon. Supernatural Tales: Excursions into Fantasy. London: Peter 0wen, 1987.

Nesbit, Edith. In Homespun. L: Lane, 1896.

Oliphant, Margaret. The Autobiography of Mrs. Oliphant, arranged and edited by Mrs. Harry Coghill. Forward by Laurie Langbauer. Chicago: U Chicago, 1988. Prolific novelist of period, author of Hester, Kirsteen and many others.

Sharp, Evelyn. The Making of a Schoolgirl. L: Lane, 1897.

Syrett, Netta. Nobody's Fault. 1896.

Ward, Mary Augusta. Robert Elsmere, L, 1888. Marcella. L: 1894. Helbeck of Bannisdale. L, 1898.

Wood, Mrs. Henry. East Lynne, ed. Sally Mitchell. New Brunswick: Rutgers U P, 1984.


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