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Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Hardback

Main Details

Title Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Karen O'Brien
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:320
Dimensions(mm): Height 235,Width 157
Category/GenreLiterary studies - c 1500 to c 1800
ISBN/Barcode 9780521773492
ClassificationsDewey:820.99287
Audience
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 5 March 2009
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

During the long eighteenth century, ideas of society and of social progress were first fully investigated. These investigations took place in the contexts of economic, theological, historical and literary writings which paid unprecedented attention to the place of women. Combining intellectual history with literary criticism, Karen O'Brien examines the central importance to the British Enlightenment both of women writers and of women as a subject of enquiry. She examines the work of a range of writers, including John Locke, Mary Astell, David Hume, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, T. R. Malthus, the Bluestockings, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Wollstonecraft and the first female historians of the early nineteenth century. She explores the way in which Enlightenment ideas created a language and a framework for understanding the moral agency and changing social roles of women, without which the development of nineteenth-century feminism would not have been possible.

Author Biography

Karen O'Brien is Professor of English at the University of Warwick.

Reviews

'a well researched intellectual book ... scholars of the British Enlightenment of the eighteenth century would do well to study Professor Karen O'Brien's presentation.' Open History 'O'Brien employs a brilliant combination of exposition and argumentation.' Clio