Through an examination of the lives and selected works of two 18th-century writers, this study attempts to discover why these women identified so strongly with their fathers, whose conservative, patriarchal views advocated the repression of democracy and freedom of speech.
What does it mean for a woman writer to identify strongly with her father and with the patriarchal tradition he represents? What factors-psychological, social, historical, or otherwise-motivate such identification? What are the consequences? This engrossing study addresses these questions through a close examination of lives and selected works of two late eighteenth-century women writers, Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth, both of whom were complicitous with their fathers' politics.
A courageous, wise, and witty book about the lives and writings of two father-identified women....The book's rejection of familial thinking manifests an exciting change in the object and aims of feminist criticism.
