At Home in the World: Women Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present

(Hardback)

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Description

A bold new literary history that says women's writing is defined less by domestic concerns than by an engagement with public life In a bold and sweeping reevaluation of the past two centuries of women's writing, At Home in the World argues that this body of work has been defined less by domestic concerns than by an active engagement with the most

Reviews

"Convincing, compelling, and--perhaps most importantly--concise. Spending just few pages at a time on each novel, Nord and DiBattista's readings are close but not confining, and compact enough to illuminate the overall narrative without dragging it down. Readers acquainted with the writers discussed, who range chronologically from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to Nadine Gordimer and Marilynne Robinson, will eagerly await their favorite books' four pages of fame. The book's style makes it accessible to less seasoned readers expanding their literary knowledge."--Publishers Weekly "A thoughtful and lively romp... While it is a tall order to compress 200 years into the same number of pages, the authors succeed admirably. Their introduction to the characters, plotlines and insights of this creative and quirky group is like a smorgasbord of appetisers reminding hungry readers just how tasty these cuisines are... At Home in the World performs an extraordinary service. It shows that women deserve to be read as commentators on the world of affairs."--Elizabeth Cobbs, Times Higher Education

Author Bio

Maria DiBattista is the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English at Princeton University. Her books include Novel Characters and Imagining Virginia Woolf (Princeton). Deborah Epstein Nord is the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton. Her books include Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930 and Walking the Victorian Streets.