Women, Writing, and Revolution: 1790-1827

The French Revolution stirred a bitter debate in Britain about the nature of civil society and the political nation. This is an original and lively study of the efforts of women writers of the period to base a reformed state and national culture on virtues and domains traditionally conceded to women. Gary Kelly, a leading expert on the period, investigates this hitherto neglected achievement by combining a wide survey of women's writing in its historical context with detailed analyses of three critically neglected leading women writers--Helen Maria Williams, Mary Hays, and Elizabeth Hamilton. This is a wide-ranging and lucid contribution to current debates concerning the intersections between women's writing, revolution, and Romanticism.