Hardly the quiet conservator of the Victorian status quo she is often thought to be, Elizabeth Gaskell gravitated toward some of the most daunting subjects - prostitution, industrial conflict, evolutionary theory - that a nineteenth century woman writer could represent in her fiction. In Dissembling Fictions: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Social Text, Deirdre d' Albertis uncovers the tactics of disguise which Gaskell skilfully employed in order to evade the prescribed notions of what a woman writer should be. D'Albertis unveils the complex patterns existent in Gaskell's works, and examines her use of dissembling as a narrative practice. An illuminative study which also proposes that feminist readers take a fresh look at the very idea of a separate tradition for women writers in light of Gaskell's example, Dissembling Fictions is a thorough and appealing analysis of an underappreciated female writer whose influence is still felt today.
- ISBN10 0333720261
- ISBN13 9780333720264
- Publish Date 6 October 1997 (first published 15 August 1997)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 September 2007
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Palgrave Macmillan
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English