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GASKELL'S DETOURS: HOW MARY BARTON, RUTH, AND CRANFORD REDEFINED “REDUNDANCY”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2014

Anna Fenton-Hathaway*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University

Extract

When the 1851 census reported an “excess” of some half-million women in Britain, feminists and anti-feminists quickly took to the press to debate the implications of the demographic imbalance. Yet Victorian novelists also wishing to convey and alter the “Condition of England” experienced something of a quandary: How should fiction respond to news of the imbalance, and what options could be suggested for resolving it?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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