Publisher's Synopsis
Hardly the quiet conservator of the Victorian status quo she is often thought to be, Elizabeth Gaskell gravitated toward some of the most daunting subjects - prostitution, industrial conflict, evolutionary theory - that a nineteenth century woman writer could represent in her fiction. In Dissembling Fictions: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Social Text, Deirdre d' Albertis uncovers the tactics of disguise which Gaskell skilfully employed in order to evade the prescribed notions of what a woman writer should be. D'Albertis unveils the complex patterns existent in Gaskell's works, and examines her use of dissembling as a narrative practice. An illuminative study which also proposes that feminist readers take a fresh look at the very idea of a separate tradition for women writers in light of Gaskell's example, Dissembling Fictions is a thorough and appealing analysis of an underappreciated female writer whose influence is still felt today.
