This title was first published in 2000. Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840-1909), the English author of forty-one ’domestic’ novels, was continuously in print from 1868 until at least 1924 and yet she is virtually unknown today. This first in-depth study of Carey’s work assesses both her immense popularity and her subsequent fall from favour. Organized thematically, it engages with the historical and cultural context of the novels as well as comparing them with the work of Carey’s contemporaries. Matters such as Carey’s creative response towards spinsterhood, her provision of vicarious male approval and her valorization of housework are perceived as functions of her writing that lie beyond formal literary criticism. This is not to deny the literary value of Carey’s work; rather it is to make intelligible its value to a large and enthusiastic readership despite an undoubted lack of appreciation on the part of reviewers.

Popular Victorian women writers considers a diverse group of women writers within the Victorian literary marketplace. It looks at authors such as Ellen Wood, Mary Braddon, Rhoda Broughton and Charlotte Yonge as well as less well-known writers including Jessie Fothergill and Eliza Meteyard. Each essay sets the individual author within her biographical and literary context and provides refreshing insights into their work. Together they bring the work of largely unknown authors and new perspectives on known authors to critical and public attention. Accessible and informative, the book is ideal for students of Victorian literature and culture as well as tutors and scholars of the period.

This companion to Victorian popular fiction includes more than 300 cross-referenced entries on works written for the British mass market. Biographical sketches cover the writers and their publishers, the topics that concerned them and the genres they helped to establish or refine. Entries introduce readers to long-overlooked authors who were widely read in their time, with suggestions for further reading and emerging resources for the study of popular fiction.