by Florence Marryat
Edited with an introduction and notes by Catherine Pope
Florence Marryat published her first novel, Love’s Conflict (1865), at a time when the sensation school of fiction was already outraging and thrilling readers in equal measure. Critics were shocked by transgressive heroines, such as Lady Audley and East Lynne‘s Isobel Vane, who were prepared to push the boundaries of acceptable femininity, and there was a considerable backlash against the perceived permissiveness of this genre. It was into this literary climate that Love’s Conflict emerged, with its themes of prostitution, alcoholism, murder and extra-marital sex.
Marryat’s original manuscript was extensively revised by the publisher’s reader, Geraldine Jewsbury, who thought it contained “shocking violations of good taste”. This new critical edition will detail those revisions and also discuss the nature of literary censorship, particularly in relation to women’s writing of the period.
The text is based on the first edition and completely reset for clarity and readability.
The scholarly edition includes:
- Critical introduction
- Suggestions for further reading
- Biography of Florence Marryat
- Explanatory footnotes
- Appendices, including Geraldine Jewsbury’s reader’s report, contemporary reviews, and extracts from Marryat’s other work
Catherine Pope is currently researching her doctoral thesis on “the regulation of female identity in the novels of Florence Marryat” at the University of Sussex. She maintains a website on Marryat and is also editing Notable Women Authors of the Day for Victorian Secrets.
Victorian Secrets also publishes The Dead Man’s Message, Her Father’s Name and The Blood of the Vampire.
AVAILABILITY: Love’s Conflict will be published in Summer 2014.
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