Silenced Sextet : Six Nineteenth-Century Canadian Women Novelists

The authors point out that the Canadian publishing industry burgeoned during the late nineteenth century and Canadian poets and novelists began to gain international recognition. However, they note that literary scholars have tended to focus on just a few of the writers of this vital expansive period. They argue that many other writers with strong critical reputations and/or popular followings - a good proportion of whom were women - have been virtually forgotten. The authors uncovered information about the lives and works of six such writers. Rosanna Leprohon, May Agnes Fleming, Margaret Murray Robertson, Susan Frances Harrison, Margaret Marshall Saunders, and Joanna E. Wood were once-popular novelists who are now for the most part ignored, with virtually all of their works out of print. A biographical profile of each author, set in the contemporary social context, is provided, as well as an analysis of career development, emphasizing publishing history and critical response. The Montreal-born Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon (1829-1879), née Mullins, shifted her literary focus after her 1851 marriage to French Canadian Dr. J.I. Leprohon from novels of manners set in England to historical romances about Quebec society. The Scottish-born Margaret Murray Robertson (1823-1897), an instructor at the Sherbrooke Ladies' Academy, left her teaching career at the age of 42 to become a full-time writer. Her first novel, Christie Redfern's Troubles, was published in 1866. She had fourteen or more novels published during her career.

Montreal and Kingston

McGill-Queen's University Press

1993

x-226p.

en

978-0-7735-0945-0