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
How did the ephemeral literature produced for nineteenth-century charity bazaars influence the broader development of Victorian social reform fiction? Thorne Murphy, an academic specializing in Victorian literature and culture, argues that these overlooked texts were central to the era's political and social discourse. By analyzing a diverse range of materials—from hand-crafted bazaar publications to canonical novels—Murphy demonstrates that these fairs served as a significant, female-led mechanism for cultural intervention and political activism.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of literature produced specifically for nineteenth-century charity bazaars.
- Examination of works by authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Harriet Martineau, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
- Discussion of fictional representations of "fancy fairs" in the works of George Eliot, Charlotte Yonge, and the Trollopes.
- A framework for understanding the intersection of private sector charity and literary production.
Scope Limits
- The study focuses primarily on British Victorian society and does not extend to international charity bazaar traditions.
- The analysis is limited to the literary and social reform aspects of these events rather than a comprehensive economic history of the bazaar movement.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars in the field of Victorian studies recognize this work as a significant contribution to the understanding of minor and ephemeral literary forms. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of how gendered labor and political activism converged in the nineteenth-century literary market.
Page Count:
274
Publication Date:
2023-03-15
Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN-10:
0192866885
ISBN-13:
9780192866882
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