Bazaar Literature: Charity, Advocacy, and Parody in Victorian Social Reform Fiction
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Author Description
Bazaar Literature reorients our understanding of Victorian social reform fiction by reading it in light of the copious amount of literature generated for charity bazaars. Bazaars were ubiquitous during the nineteenth century, part of the vibrant and massive private sector response to a rapidly industrializing society. Typically organized and run by women, charity bazaars were often called "fancy fairs" since they specialized in ladies' hand-crafted "fancy" work. Indeed, they were a key method women used to intervene in political, social, and cultural affairs. Yet their conventional purpose—to raise money for charity—has led to their being widely overlooked and misunderstood. Bazaar Literature remedies these misconceptions by demonstrating how the literature written in conjunction with bazaars shaped the social, political, and literary movements of its time. This study draws upon a wide variety of texts printed to be sold at bazaars, including literature by Robert Louis Stevenson, Harriet Martineau, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, alongside fictional depictions of fancy fairs by Charlotte Yonge, George Eliot, Frances Trollope, and Anthony Trollope. The book revises our understanding of the larger literary market in social reform fiction, revealing a parodic, self-critical strain that is paradoxically braided with strident political activism and its realist sensibilities.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This study investigates how the literature produced for nineteenth-century charity bazaars influenced and reflected the broader landscape of Victorian social reform fiction. Leslee Thorne-Murphy, an academic specializing in Victorian literature, utilizes a diverse archive of primary source materials—including pamphlets, poems, and short stories created specifically for fancy fairs—to argue that these texts were not merely peripheral but central to the era's political and literary discourse. By examining the intersection of charitable fundraising and creative writing, the author demonstrates how women leveraged these spaces to engage in significant social and cultural advocacy.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of literature written for charity bazaars by authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Harriet Martineau, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
- Examination of fictional representations of bazaars in works by George Eliot, Charlotte Yonge, and the Trollopes.
- A framework for understanding the parodic and self-critical nature of Victorian reformist writing.
Scope Limits
- The study focuses primarily on the British nineteenth-century context and does not extend to international charity models.
- The analysis is limited to texts directly associated with or depicting the bazaar phenomenon rather than a comprehensive survey of all Victorian social reform literature.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars in the field of Victorian studies recognize this work as a significant contribution to the understanding of nineteenth-century literary markets and gendered political agency. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the depth of the archival research presented throughout the chapters.
Page Count:
336
Publication Date:
2022-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0192692380
ISBN-13:
9780192692382
History
Special Topics
Victorian
Academic
Literary Criticism
Gender Studies
Social History
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