The Caustic Pen Is Mightiest: A Tradition of Female Satire in the Novels of Jane Austen, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Muriel Spark

Female satirists have long been treated by critics as anomalies within an androcentric genre because of the reticence to acknowledge women's right to express aggression through their writing. In Pride and Prejudice (1813), A House and Its Head (1935), and The Girls of Slender Means (1963), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969), and Muriel Spark (1918-2006) all combine elements of realism and satire within the vehicle of the domestic novel to target institutions of their patriarchal societies, including marriage and family dynamics, as well as the evolving conceptions of domesticity and femininity, with a subtle feminism. These female satirists illuminate the problems they have with society more through presentation than judgment in their satire, which places them on the fringes of a society they wish to educate, distinguishing their satire from that written by male satirists who are judging from a privileged height above the society they are attempting to correct. All three women create heroines and secondary female characters who find ways to survive, and occasionally thrive, within the confines of a polite society that has a streak of savagery running just beneath its polished surface.

Private (Brown) Eyes: Ethnicity, Genre and Gender in Crime Fiction in the Gloria Damasco novels and the Chicanos Comic Series

The representation of women in crime fiction has traditionally been a complicated one. Consistently forced into secondary characters (assistants, girlfriends, or damsels in distress) the most active role a female character could aspire to was that of the femme fatale, a pit of perdition, an unwelcome distraction for a man looking for truth and justice. This traditional approach to the genre has been challenged in the last decades by women acting as detectives, trusted with solving their cases in a hostile male world. Similarly, the traditional white male protagonist has been contested by fictions where ethnic minorities are not just consigned to the criminal world, but where detectives are members of ethnic groups, and can use their knowledge of the community to solve the case. This essay focuses on the crossroads of ethnic and women’s detective fiction, specifically the Gloria Damasco series by Chicana writer Lucha Corpi and the graphic novel Chicanos (Trillo and Risso, 1996). Both protagonists (Gloria Damasco, a Chicana clairvoyant detective, and “poor, ugly, and a detective” Alejandrina Yolanda Jalisco) must face both the dangers of investigating criminal cases and discrimination in their professional surroundings due to their gender and ethnicity. By contrasting these texts, the essay elucidates the importance of specific cultural products, their connection to (and defiance of) canonical forms of the genre, and their rejection of generic and gender expectations.

Mary, Quite Contrary: The Novels of Mary Davys, 1700-1727

As a relatively unknown author, Mary Davys (1674-1732) has garnered scant scholarly attention and little admiration for her work. Those who have written on Davys’s prose fiction most often mention the last three texts she published, Familiar Letters betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady (1716), The Reform’d Coquet (1724), and The Accomplish’d Rake (1727), yet rare mention is made of her first three novels. Moreover, of her later novels, many scholars read them as socially conservative and as representations of Davys’s support of and belief in patriarchy. My project disproves the long-standing and generally agreed upon conceptions regarding Davys’s writings and demonstrates the significance of her life’s work to studies of the novel. By investigating contemporary cultural issues, discussing the popular genres and modes of early eighteenth-century England, and comparing and contrasting Davys’s fiction to other authors’, I explore the myriad ways in which Davys experimented with the formal properties of the novel. Also, by closely examining each novel independently, I foreground Davys’s willingness to engage with charged contemporary topics such as rape, suicide, the laws surrounding inheritance, and male privilege. Not only does she engage with these topics; there is a discernable voice of protest imbedded in the narratives. At times, the techniques Davys employed and the plots she created in her work obscured her social concerns, yet with close reading, subversion also surfaces as one of Davys’s methods. An analysis of Davys’s experimentations with prose fiction and form illuminates the ways in which those innovations allowed Davys to criticize the culture in which she lived. Furthermore, an investigation of the whole of Davys’s work and the totality of her novels—looking at both form and content—exemplifies the importance of Davys for students of feminist thought and the development of the novel.

Ten great novels. Suggestions for clubs and private reading.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Plays, histories, and novels of the ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn : with life and memoirs /

Each volume has also, as special t.-p., a reproduction of the original t.p.; v. 1-4: Plays written by the late ingenious Mrs. Behn. In four volumes, 3rd ed., London, 1724; v. 5-6: All the histories and novels written by the late ingenious Mrs. Behn, intire in two volumes. Pub. by Mr. Charles Gildon.

Novels of the sisters Bronte /

v. 1-2. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë.--v. 3-4. Villette, by Charlotte Brontë.--v. 5. The professor, by Charlotte Brontë.--v. 6. Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë. With a memoir of her sisters by Charlotte Brontë.--v. 7. Wuthering heights, by Emily Brontë.--v. 8-9. Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë.--v. 10-11. The tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë.--v. 12. The life of Charlotte Brontë, by E.C. Gaskell. Introduction and notes by Temple Scott and B.W. Willett.

The miscellaneous works and novels of R.C. Dallas, Esq.

v. 1. Miscellany -- v. 2. The first volume of Percival -- v. 3. The second volume of Percival -- v. 4. The first volume of Aubrey -- v. 5. The second volume of Aubrey -- v. 6. The first volume of Morland -- v. 7. The second volume of Morland.

The novels of William Harrison Ainsworth.

"Memoir" of William Harrison Ainsworth by W. E. A. Axon: vol. XI, p. xi-xiiii.

The novels and stories of Richard Harding Davis ...

Fronts to [v. 1] and [v. 12] are ports.

Waverley novels.

List of contents at end of vol. [48].

Letters to Richard Heber, esq., containing critical remarks on the series of novels beginning with "Waverley", and an attempt to ascertain their author ...

Mode of access: Internet.

The novels, poems, and memories of Charles Kingsley.

Half-title.