The Provincial Fiction of Mitford, Gaskell and Eliot

[Headline]Considers the interrelated careers of three highly significant women writers of the nineteenth century In this lively and illuminating work, Kevin A. Morrison offers a reassessment of Mary Russell Mitford's and Elizabeth Gaskell's provincial fiction, sometimes deprecated within a genre frequently considered 'minor literature', and demonstrates the importance of their work to the development of George Eliot's liberalism in the age of high realism. Although Gaskell was influenced by Mitford and Eliot by Gaskell, only a handful of scholars have considered the affinities and resemblances among them. None have done so in depth. Establishing a chain of influence, this book examines the three authors' interrelated careers: the challenges they encountered in achieving distinction within the literary sphere; the various pressures exerted on them by publishers, reviewers and editors; and the career-enhancing possibilities afforded and the limitations imposed by different modes of publication. Attending to publication history, genre and narrative voice, Morrison suggests new ways to think about provincialism, liberalism and women's networked authorship in the nineteenth century. [Bio]Kevin A. Morrison is Provincial Chair Professor, University Distinguished Professor and Professor of British Literature in the School of Foreign Languages at Henan University. He is the author of the Modern Language Association award-winning Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture (2018), as well as A Micro-History of Victorian Liberal Parenting (2018) and Study-Abroad Pedagogy, Dark Tourism, and Historical Reenactment (2019).