Choice - September 1999
"...Broughton offers insightful readings of Leslie Stephen and Thomas Carlyle...Recommended for all undergraduate and graduate libraries."
Book Description
Men of Letters, Writing Lives takes an in-depth look at the developments within Victorian autobiography and biography, and asks what we can learn about the conditions and limits of male literary authority. The book focuses on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen and the debate surrounding James Anthony Groude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Providing a feminist analysis of the effects of this literary production on culture, Trev Broughton argues that the modernization of life writing was due to the commercialization of the life and letters industry and the proliferation of professions with a vested interest in the written life.
About the Author
Trev Lynn Broughton is a lecturer at the University of York in Women's Studies and English and is co-editor of Women's Lives/Women's Times.
Men of Letters, Writing Lives: Masculinity and Literary Auto Biography in the Late-Victorian Period FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this study Trev Broughton explores developments within Victorian auto/biography and asks what they can teach us about the conditions and limits of male literary authority. She focuses on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the auto/biographical theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen, one of the century's most revered exponents of the written life; and the debate surrounding James Anthony Froude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The author examines the proliferation of the professions with a vested interest in the 'written life'; the speeding-up and institutionalization of the Life-and-Letters industry; and the consequent spread of a network of mainly male practitioners and commentators. She argues that these elements all contributed to a new 'auto/biographical' subjectivity. Men of Letters, Writing Lives will be of interest to students and scholars of literature, cultural history, gender, and auto/biography.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
Explores developments within Victorian auto/biography and asks what they can teach us about the conditions and limits of male literary authority, focusing on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the auto/biographical theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen, and the debate surrounding James Anthony Froude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Examines the proliferation of professions with a vested interest in the "written life," institutionalization of the life-and-letters industry, and the spread of a network of mainly male practitioners and commentators, arguing that these elements created a new auto/biographical subjectivity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)
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