Sisters and the English Household: Domesticity and Women's Autonomy in Nineteenth-Century English Literature

Description

Sisters and the English Household revalues unmarried adult sisters in nineteenth-century English literature as positive figures of legal and economic autonomy representing productive labour in the domestic space. As a crucial site of contested values, the adult unmarried sister carries the discursive weight of sustained public debates about ideals of domesticity in nineteenth-century England.

Anne D. Wallace is professor of English at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA. The author of Walking, Literature, and English Culture (1993), Wallace has also published articles on John Clare, Charlotte Smith, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.